a Fucked Up Situation...What would you do?

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eyekon1

eyekon1

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Aug 24, 2006
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About a year ago, I had done some work with a local city radio station (hiphop rap R&B). At the time I had just started my home based business doing web design and multimedia. I proposed to the radio station to do a 'trade'.

I build you a community based website complete with user profiles, private messaging, (at the momment no member blogs or forum) in return for advertising on the radio. I was also going to take care the first year of webhosting for them and domain name.

Now that I work full-time for another company, I dont really need the advertising and my banner for my multimedia web design company is still up on their site.

Now that the year is over they owe me for webhosting which is taking them some time in paying me. I don't want to burn any bridges or let things go sour by trying to 'threaten' them by taking their site down. I'm looking at the bigger picture, and possibly work out a comprimise where both parties end up happy...hopefully more 'happier' on my side of things ;)

This site is a small gold mine, getting like 2500 uniques a month, roughly 250/day (on a good day).... with a steady membership of 1178 members and growing.

If I can't have it all, I just want at least a piece of it.

The owners of the radio station are aware of advertising and google ads, but they don't know exactly how MUCH you can actually make...even on just adsense alone!, That's why I'm sort of cautious in approaching this situation because I don't want to be set up to be taken advantage of.

The letter of agreement signed was that I was to provide them a website, and FREE maintenance and support for 3 months, after that I would charge them $50 bucks an hour everytime they call me to fix/add/design something for their site. So far, the site's pretty solid, nothing major in terms of changes other than the occassional admin image approval when a member uploads a pix (i dont mind administrating that)

This letter of agreement doesnt specify who exactly has ownership of the site, it just basically said that I will develop their site in return for this...

all webhosting and domain name charges are under my name and credit card.


I'm trying to plan out a strategy where I want to be able to tell them....

"...hey look, I'll take care of all your webhosting charges and any web maintenance or support for XX amount of hours, any hours over that I start charging $XX amound of dollars...in return i put up some affiliate ads / google ads..whatever.."

what do you think about this approach, you think they'd buy it? or could you develop any other clever ideas that works out better?

in the long run, i see that any affiliate ads or google ads in general have a much larger pay off...because the site is continuously gettin Advertised on the radio.

anyone with any input on how i should keep myself covered and one step ahead would be greatly appreciated!
 
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This site isn't going to earn much using adsense, 250 uniques a day is pretty low.

I would charge them for updates and hosting. However, it sounds like they are slow on payments. If it becomes too much trouble hounding them for the cash I would ask for a payment for your work and set them up on their own shared hosting account.
 
eyekon1 said:
"...hey look, I'll take care of all your webhosting charges and any web maintenance or support for XX amount of hours, any hours over that I start charging $XX amound of dollars...in return i put up some affiliate ads / google ads..whatever.."

what do you think about this approach, you think they'd buy it? or could you develop any other clever ideas that works out better?
Click to expand...

im afraid they'll catch on and be like.."hey, you're (possibly) making a shit load of money..we want you to stop!"
 
Ben said:
This site isn't going to earn much using adsense, 250 uniques a day is pretty low.

I would charge them for updates and hosting. However, it sounds like they are slow on payments. If it becomes too much trouble hounding them for the cash I would ask for a payment for your work and set them up on their own shared hosting account.
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ah, i c...what do you think about affiliate ads that pertain to music? cd's, instruments, schools.... i mean, the radio station guys are pretty cool when it comes to new developments on their site....i added the feature of each member being able to add their own photos to their own photo galleries and they were all raving about it on the radio.... this would almost work like a ppc?
 
In my opinion, I don't believe you are going to make much with the amount of traffic the site is currently receiving. I think it is going to be more lucrative for you to charge for updating the site at this stage.
 
eyekon1 said:
ah, i c...what do you think about affiliate ads that pertain to music? cd's, instruments, schools.... i mean, the radio station guys are pretty cool when it comes to new developments on their site....i added the feature of each member being able to add their own photos to their own photo galleries and they were all raving about it on the radio.... this would almost work like a ppc?
Click to expand...

250 uniques a day is very low number if you are trying to make some cash on a social site. I would estimate that you wouldn't be able to squeeze more than $50-$100 out of it per month, unless you are super creative. Maybe if you went around and got local advertisers, that would be your best bet.
 
Fuck them. If they can't write you a check on time, put ads up on there for yourself, and then be slow to remove them unless they pay you up-front or in advance.
 
Ben said:
Maybe if you went around and got local advertisers, that would be your best bet.
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yes, they (the radio station) has talked about that, in that case i would just charge them and hourly rate for my services in setting up their advertising, they would keep all the advertising profits for that.


any other ideas in how to promote other sites using this site? ... i have access to all users profiles and email addy's but i dont want to come across as being all spammy..?

i was thinking of setting up in the admin side where, when a new user signs up, they get an immediate Private message / email / save as friend request from a member i create that has some sort of 'advertising' on it. because its all automatic, i don't think its considered spammy? do you see any downsides to this strategy?

to cut to the point...since you pointed out that the uniques are pretty low, i guess adsense/affilate stuff is not a priority but still able to do.....i basically want to know what i could do with this site to benefit me in someway, if its to promote or whatever, i want to utilize their user database, without having the radio station guys going ..."hey wtf are you doing...?!.." lol

sorry if this is all noob stuff to you pros, i'm still learning on how to make best of this particular situation...
 
Jon said:
Fuck them. If they can't write you a check on time, put ads up on there for yourself, and then be slow to remove them unless they pay you up-front or in advance.
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lol, true, i just dont want my name tarnished, they do have the power of radio on their side, ...i don't know if its against radio rules to shit talk another company on air?? ....i still have to live in this city.
 
Why don't strike a percentage deal?

I'll help you monetize the site with adsense / CD sales and get 50/30/10% of the returns.

AFTER you've paid me.

Before that, I'll get all, cause I am going to set it up and let you see how much it generates.

::emp::
 
Would you mind sending me that letter of agreement? I'm looking at a similar situation, but they would be giving leasing me a vehicle for the year, in return for designing, maintaining, hosting, and managing their websites.
 
You own the domain name? You own the site. I'd talk to a lawyer, but if it looks like they broke any end of the contract its "yours."
 
Why not ask your CURRENT employer if they'd like to advertise via the local radio station and see if you can put together a DEAL where everyone wins? ie., YOU get paid for past work/maintenance work (and recoup your hosting/reg/etc costs), your current employer gets local advertising for lower cost, the radio station gets to keep their site up....
 
I think it is a small gold mine. Ifthe ads are targeted to the local region it could be powerful. Eg. Promoting events at a local club the radio station attents or djs or something like that. Or simply promoting events the radio station does. I wouldn't do anything until you get your scrilla/chedda
 
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