I'm thinking we could probably set up a PayPal account pretty easily just for the board, and then take donations until we get the $5 to remove the ads, add our own banner, get a url, etc. What do you guys think? And who would be willing to help with this?
I would say that we wait on this. I don't know (and I know it's not your intention) but asking people for money to be on a message board is kind of a douchbaggy thing to do.
Well, it wouldn't be required to pay to post..but it's still douche-baggish. Ads don't bug me, but if you really really wanna get rid of 'em..pay 5 bucks a month. That's cheaper than an Arby's Roast Beef Combo. I pay 10 bucks a month for website hosting and don't ask for help with that.
If the monthly fee was 100 bucks or more, then yeah.. I could see your request for help. But for 5 bucks, I'd laugh at you. HA
But....if you get the public website up and traffic increases, then go ahead and sign up for a free Google AdSense account. They wont pay you until you've generated at least $100 in clicks, but that's probably the best way to generate income via your website. Heck, it's how InvisionFree keeps themselves in business. It's kinda' cool how the ads are targetted to your content, too. The average click pays about 8 cents...so do the math and you'll see that you'd need a substanial amount of traffic before you can cash in.
I met some ding dong a few months ago who runs five shitty websites. They're basic information with lots o' AdSense ads. The cockbag claims he makes 100,000 a month..but I sincerely doubt that. The way to play the game is to drive traffic to your site and eventually you'll get more clicks. This guy would take his payouts from AdSense and re-invest it in Google's AdWords (the other side of the fence) to get more traffic.
I hooked myself up with an account last month and so far I've generated about 6 bucks in pay-outs. If things remain status quo, sometime around Christmas 2006 I'll get my 100 bucks!
If you go with AdSense, you the admin feller, must NEVER click on your own ads. Don't do it. Google will track you and "suspend" your account. If you get your buddies to do it, they'll find out as well. Don't know HOW they do it, but they do it. Also, if you want lots of search engine traffic to the site.... write stuff about Nikolai Volkov or the Undertaker. Seriously.
Yeah, I just wanted to get the board without the s7.invisionfree.com/... in the url. It is pretty doucebaggish though, so I think I'll forget it. Thanks for the comments.
The ads don't bother me at all. I don't even notice them most of the time anyhow.