Interesting idea? or just BS?

[Toon]

Hi all,
well I discovered this great board about a week ago, and I spent most time reading many many threads. Very interesting! So I decided I should join the community and post :-)
Well here it goes.
I have recently developped a site that gives users an online profile, a kind of template based website... users get asl.to/nickname (where nickname is .... du-uh )

Firstly I would greatly appreciate what you think of it http://asl.to and if any of you have any suggestions... ? donno

secondly, I would like you to take a (quick) look to http://asl.to/partners.asp . It is about the 'partnership' we thought of. It is some kind of a link-exchange in a further extend. The sites that already partnered with us are already genereting 30% more hits back than they give us... (their buttons generate like a ctr of 5%, which i simply cannot believe)

My question is.... I am myself surprised of the good results our program does for our partners. But the (american) sites we contacted for partnership seem NOT interested in any way, most even don't take the time to write a note back.... So, what do you think of it? Does it needs any adaptions (allthough it -already- proves it works...), any better formulation on the site? And would anybody of you ever partner with us?

Thanks a lot for responses, really need to figure this one out, thanks.

Toon

[aspen]

Well your site to me seems pretty popular. Just checking the the pageviews on a few random people. I'm wondering why you dont have any banner ads, I dont see how you're making any money off it at all even though you could.

As to why US companies aren't interested. Well to me a big portion of your user base, or every profile I viewed, is not US. Of course you wont get many US users until you get US partners, but you wont get US partners until you get US users, its a catch 22.

Then it might have to do with how you approach them. I dont know but I would emphasize my the number of current members, and the average page views each one gets. People like big numbers.

Chris

[Toon]

Well you have a point there of course :-)

Thanks for liking the site, but it is not yet popular :-) Only one month old... and we started out in belgium (our hometown, by telling our friends, and so on.... so our number of members rapidly growed, but it were all non-us members.)

I thought about the same vicious circle and the only way i see to break it is by paying webmasters to lead. (going to setup something right away, will let you know) Or contacting webmasters and hope they see the long term. (any of yours interested?)

About the non-bannered site :-) well I don't like banners, and I don't like commercials... but one day my budget will be zero (and that day wont be too far, as hosting costs are growing each day) and I will be forced to put up some ads. W

I will see.

The problem stays as currently only 6% of the members are US based

anyone suggestions? or interested in partnership with asl.to ? or maybe suggestions for other kinds of partnerships...

[aspen]

If its only a month old, and you've got individual pages that have already generated 2000 hits, then you're going to be very successful, think geocities.

Chris

[necrominator]

I saw the same exact posts on other sites, sounds like your just advertising.

[Toon]

Well yes I posted the same (not integral, but almost) in another board (g**kv*ll*g*)

It is not like I am just advertising. I want to know what people think of it. Is it wrong to ask 2 boards about it? If it that is unacceptable for you, please tell me and I will delete my thread here (if i am able to do so) as I posted the other before.

It is not by means of advertising, allthough I am asking you for opinions on something I do... so indirect I do ask you to take a look and maybe if your site is in a way related, to consider partnership. And if you do not like it. I would like to hear it. Thats why I posted it here.

Also I think it is an interesting idea for others to pick up. As by means of "other" link exchange that has a much greater effect (CTR & such). I thought it might be interesting for other webmasters to read .

(btw: I do have already seen a couple of sites that have recently implemented the same... not that I invented the wheel but...)

Again, I admit that I have posted this almost the same (but it was entirely true) on ONE other board. If this is truly such a problem, tell me how to delete this thread.

Kind Regards,
Toon Coppens
(looking for longer term relationship with this board

[Hierophant]

I don't mind if you post your request on 100 different forums, that is what makes the Web so great. Welcome to the Community.

Free websites are very much in demand. Many people like to establish their personality on the Internet and a website is the best way to do so. As Aspen said if your growing that fast you will go far with this idea.

[CJ]

Yeah WELCOME to the SitePoint Community Toon

Christophe

/me is rather happy seeing toon is from Belgium too
/me needs to kick off $mIRC %scripting

[Siteowners]

Hi Toon!
nice site, but in your field the competition is great and it's tough to succeed... Try to make it as unique as possible! It will become more interesting as you get more members.
Two suggestions: you can categorize the interests so that one can search according to interests. You can also sort the results at random so that members whose nick starts from 'A' don't have a benefit.

I could only co-operate with you if you had organised your members according to their interests, had an opt-in e-mail list and could e-mail only to those who are interested in web development.

Good luck!
Steve.

[SoldierMail]

I love the idea... keep up the good work. Add some banners... get paid!

[Toon]

Hi wluke and Christophe (freesources) & thanks for the welcome word. I was a bit shocked about the post of necrominator as the last thing I want to do is spam or just shameless advertise. But thanks for the welcome word, I am hoping i can contribute to this community a bit once and a while and spread some knowledge (I guess I'll have to wait some time until I can spread my knowledge, as there isn't (yet?) much to spread ) And freesources, we are going to talk soon about our lil country , I am very busy now with exams (2e zit )..

Hi SiteOwners, thanks for the compliment and indeed the competition is huge. Indeed therefore I want to make it as unique as possible.

Thanks for the tips. About the interests you're right, although members like it more to enter any value they want, organising them by standard interests will certainly help partners . About the e-mail list we could talk
About the ABC sort of things... well yeah... don't know if it's a real benifit but i'll try working something out.

But indeed lots of work still have to be done. I have some new ideas, but it's important to improve first what is yet done (i think) So thanks for the suggestions.

If here are members who have a chat based or freebie or teen site and are interested in some kind of linkexchange/partnership. Maybe we could talk let me know something, mmmmmmkay?

Toon

[Siteowners]

Hi again1

forgot to ask you before... how do you prevent nudity? I mean that everyone is free to post an offending photo... isn't that a problem?

and something else... I noticed that in the search, ages start from 13 years. In ICQ age groups start from 18. Have you checked that issue and are you sure that you won't have any legal problems?

[Toon]

Thanks for liking the idea SoldierMail.

SiteOwners: about the nudity, we check all new edited pictures very often and if something is unsuitable we delete it. (which doesn't occur very often, as mostly other members complain directly)

About the age thing. I believe everybody older than 13 is in legal function to use the internet and share some information (http://www.icq.com/legal/privacy.html). I have a good friend who is specialist in internet laws, but the man is very busy, I asked him several times to explain me the whole thing and help me out writing a good privacy & diclaimer, but .... time time

Allthough I don't think there will be legal problems, any help would be greatly appreciated