|
---Wait For The Music---Go Full Screen--- The Dan Daily Sites
When Only The Best! Will Do...
Laughter is the Sun that Drives Winter from the Human Face. Please Spread It Around...
Good Morning All! "Free Lists In Jeopardy"
A reader writes: Dear Danny, Looks like you aren't the only one getting crunched ... Thought I'd let ya know it's not just you Danny (although you are the best!) even the little guys are having problems these days I guess... At Least you have an advertisement free site. This guy even advertises and has problems. Keep on truckin, you've got it going on... And, in the right direction!! Dawn
Pete Says (note: I don't know Pete or what he does) Well everyone, thanks for sticking by me in this time of change - All of the lists hosts are beginning to clamp down on advertising in their hosted lists - Yahoogroups, Domeus and even Topica have recently been closing down lists left right and center. If I suddenly disappear off the face of this earth please bear with me, I will be back - eventually. I have looked into the possibility of starting my own list hosting service and for $1500 and then $400 a month I probably could. Now with the revenue I make from the advertising in these newsletters - about $50 a month I could setup my own for one month in about three years time! It is getting to the stage where nothing is going to be free for too much longer I am just glad I was able to make some people smile along the way. Yahoo has already announced that they will start charging if you want to access your yahoo e-mail account using a pop3 server like outlook express - that starts on the 24th April I believe. If I went with the option, I have to use a paid service: It would cost me for this list alone $50 a month - times that by 6 lists and that's $300 a month. Worth it? Nope I'm afraid not. You will soon start to see your joke-lists disappearing unless people start supporting the lists NOW! Its not just this list that is under threat. This week I have had contact with 6 other newsletter owners that are seriously considering throwing in the towel. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN! Support your favorite
e-zines by clicking on their ads, Sorry for the rant - I just like to get it off my chest every now and again. Pete
Well Pete? Welcome to the club... I've been preaching this for the last year and have caught nothing but crap over it. I never used Topica or any of the free list hosting sites because as you've found out; when you're not paying, you have no rights and they can change the rules anytime they feel like it. This is not a way to establish yourself as a list with any degree of longevity. Their changes force your changes which hurts your integrity. The readership hates changes! I set up a subscription model and caught nothing but grief over it. Now everyone's doing it and I still catch nothing but grief over it. Your example is why I switched from an email based e-zine and went to the web. I've seen Topica do similar things, a few times, to it's listmasters and their answer was always: "You get it for free, you have no rights!" And indeed, they are quite correct. Even AOL no longer has a "bulk mailing list" for editors: Or at least, they don't want anyone to know about it. Though they encouraged members to start e-zines in the old days, they don't want to pay for the bandwidth today. Someone has to pay the BILL! I originally started on "free" servers for my web pages. What a nightmare that was. I finally found a good one but they went down for two weeks! That was the last straw. I went to pay servers and discovered a whole new world. You have rights when you pay the bills. People love to say everything should be free on the Internet. The numbers you mention above are proof why it can't be. In the next year, I predict a huge shake out of email based e-zines for exactly the reasons you mentioned. When people realize how much "real" money their hobby's are going to cost, they'll all throw in the towel or go web based and start subscription services as I did. Most will be so discouraged, they won't bother... Giving away something for free is one thing. Marketing it for money is quite another. Gosh how I know the feeling. Editors don't mind giving their time, but their money is a whole different matter. They won't pay and they shouldn't have to. That's why they have subscribers after all, isn't it? I'd like to say it's a sad day for the net. But I won't because I don't think it is. Call me selfish but I saw this coming a long time ago and took steps for my survival. These changes will help to weed out the huge mass of free e-zines that constantly come and go and compete against me. It'll make my life MUCH easier. It'll force people to understand what I've been preaching for so long... Thanks Pete. Dan Daily |
