I don't care about making any money. That's not why I come here. I definately don't want to see turn into a cheap adult porn site. I like it the way it is. However, I do agree with the soulcast garage sale idea. Always open, always accessable and you make 20% like hotlips said.
I will be back soon with my opinion on the top 5 posts.
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/80206/then-and-now%3F
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/75000/to-whom-it-may-again-concern
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/76903/I-got-trouted-%3A-%29
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/74744/An-Open-Letter-To-My-Fellow-Soulcasters
My five favorites
What assurances are given with the fee it, SC, would not capriciously boot someone off because they (users) disagreed with a petulant, childlike moderator?
Uncensored means UNCENSORED and should not be subject to capricious whims such as demonstrated with CopsUnited.
Paying a reasonable rate for usage is not objectionable but where is the money going? Is it for salaries? New and better servers? Services, chats? what?
Any ideas there?
Monthly "tags" to an account is far to cumbersome and involved not only for the extra book work..records keeping and all but it's a pain for we little people.
An annual charge I would not be bothered by but for that matter it would have to have some significant upgrades or services to correlate with the "amount". If there were a guaranteed way to get paid for the blog that would off set the cost if not even recover.
With few exceptions I know of no one that has ever made any money from adsense. What a crock of crap that is. I think CreativeWoman once said she got a check for some small amount like 3 or six bucks. Matters not..it is just not a safe or guaranteed payment.
I am glad that someone at SoulCast has been thinking though. That, in and of itself, is encouraging.
JD and if you wish to pull the plug on me again..go for it.!!
I was asking the same question as Evil Twin: why this 5 top bloggers? Explain better, thanks.
About the fee to pay...i wouldnt care pay a little fee at year, not monthly, if it would be a way to keep this site alive. But i doubt you can attract new users if they have to pay. You will have to update this site a lot, a lot more .
And, as Mamie said, i don't like the premium concept either. And i would hate flashing banners or invasive ads.
When i came here i got intrigued by the Adsense thing. I signed in but since i had "sex' in some of my first posts title they refused me the account. How stupid is that? So i dont' actually have an Adsense account but it seems obvous nobody is getting rich with it. And actually i coulnd care less about Adsense: i am here for the people, not for the bucks.
What i wouldnt absolutely like is Soulcast turning in another MySpace. No under 16 restriction seems reasonable. Webcamera? Bah, if somebody needs them....but i would be extremely careful with such upgrades....
The selling-buying section might be interesting but i would expect a lot of money making from that.
Soulcast: You're funny. I'll give you a kickback! I'm not going to toot my own horn (yes I am) but I've brought another site into a money maker. It's complete opposite of this though.
The Administrator gave me ideas of what he wanted (people that would NEED his site, businesses that would NEED it and what places to target advertising his site). Why he was losing money, where did he go wrong, etc. I researched and it took me about 5 months to put a plan together. These things don't happen over night. I'm sure you know and it's great that you're asking users.
From what I'm getting from you right now, which I'm still confused about a little, is that I would allow people to put banner ads of their own choice from companies that offer affiliate programs. Don't forget, I'm medicated so I do get confused a LOT. :-)
As I've been here for about a year, I know many more have been here longer, I think we should be free members and new members can pay. That might cut off half of the insults and prevent others (paying customers) to start a smoke show.
If you do have paying customers, you would know who they are and that would cut out the "Anonymous" part of Soul Cast, because SC would know. What if someone in the office running the payments notices that they know someone? Yeah sure, everyone can sign an agreement, but that NEVER stops anyone from talking outside of SC in their private time. I would imagine you would have to start IP tracking due to payment/credit card/ paypal fraud???
Daily
E_T, it just worries me more about fraud than anything!
Jessi: I've been taken 2 times by 2 different set of thieves. Neither of which had anything to do with phishing emails and one of them actually happened when I was using it while shopping outside my home. I had to speak to the SECRET SERVICE! Never in my life did I ever think I would be on the phone and meeting with them! I had to deal with the Japanese Consolate, as that's where my money from my debit card theft was spent, in Japan. It's just way too scary for me, personally. I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I agree with you, if someone wants to find us, they can find us here if they have to. However, I'd imagine that SC would have to be served with papers before any information was turned over about it's users.
Daily
Soulcast: Might I add, you would need a fraud department to review every payment, suspicious payments (i.e. double payments different users, whey would anyone want to pay twice fro 2 ID's) and that would put you in the hole even more.
How about you sell some jewelery <wink, wink> on the home page!
Daily
Jessi,
If you've been there, it's crappy. Coming from the credit industry myself, we are all insured against theft and most people don't know that you don't have to pay for that "special insurance offer" that the creditors try to upsell people on, you're already covered. I got my money back, but getting your entire life back once your total identity is stolen, it follows you forever and can take years to clean up, insured or not.
Suddenrain, I completely agree with you.
Soul Cast, I apologize for veering off topic here. I think you need to find out first, the audience you want to target. Mommy's? Porn Stars? Professionals? Authors? All of them? Then create your ideas for an ad campaign to target each audience on an individual basis, pimp it out. Not a lot of people (including myself) know much about html/code and I believe if you include in your ads that no code or html is needed, you will draw more people in. After you have your audience, or during the process, implement some of the ideas here. I wouldn't want to pay, to be honest. If you haven't read a lot of blogs out here, there are people trying to MAKE money, not give what little they have up to write. Blogger is free and one could create an anonymous name there.
I still say market that jewelry site, lol ;-)
Daily
Zayda: I LOVE Little Box by Kruu. Such a sad ending though. It was so much fun while it lasted and hopefully she finds her way out into the world again.
Who could forget HappyKat's Anonymous Only Blog...that thing has soooo many comments on it! Some of them are moving, some just fun, some break your heart,some not much of anything, but it's a place where anyone says anything. I mean, we do get to a point where we "know" each other and want to say something but not "out loud"
Secretlife has a post about Random Acts of Kindness that was great.
I would have picked Scalywag's "River Trip", if Scaly would have left it on. But he deleted it before leaving Sc. Such a shame!
I love Secret's post "Slow Hands" ...it involved so many bloggers and with such a light hearted and fun way that everybody was having a blast. Its an example of how this community can be just silly and attracting people
I like "Dj Moonriver plays anon love notes" because it has been a great, warm and lovely counterpart of the HappyKat anon blog.
I like any of SW's The nature of...because each of them is an example of good intelligent conversation and deep considerations.
I still can't pick one blog that can showcase the storyteller side of Soulcast. I will be back.
@ SOULCAST : Be sure to show them LadyGamer back about two months ago when the infantile adolescent "controller" who speaks for ALL the staff decided to boot CopsUnited for asking some very direct Questions. He was not being nasty or profane he just disagreed with the moderator and got booted.
BE SURE to show them and any new members what happens when you take an intelligent approach with the staff and get called an ass and then Booted. Okay. Are we being honest here or just white washing the lily white strain?
I just want to know. Fair enough? Probably not.. Free speech or differing opinions are NOT welcome. It is NOT uncensored. Make sure that is highlighted. There are enough witnesses to that.
Dunno what a Moon Platoon is..don't care and certainly dont give a crap about the comment. Sure it's me..must be becasue I approach everything with a very direct approach and take no bullshit..made me an effective cop and Fed interrogator..pussies I don't need...so..stuff it.
they don't want suggestions at all. They are looking for a way out of this mess. it has become a hge quagmire. Anyone can see the problem.. frankly I dont give a crap if they all go bankrupt...
If they are interested in real ideas they can call me..I am easy to find..
Bloc, at times it comes back to enough is enough, you know? And you are right, I'm tired of the fight. He and Hotlips don't exist anymore. Thank you.
I nominated this one http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/81904/blocking-a-person-is-very-very-irksome-indeed#comment_305932
Blocking a person is very irksome indeed. If you haven't read it, it's hysterical.
Yes. cops was the only one who had the balls to tell the SC staff that they were wrong. He pointed out the "emotional " involvement and penchant to perform in a olagarchy fashion.
they were still wrong to treat it as a personal thing.
the "cancer" thing is just plain stupid. there are issues which ploarized the community and cause those people with the character and depth of a frizbie to go ballistic. Is that wrong? Nope. It serves to prove just how ignorant some can be.
Ed.......i forgot about that post and that story. I remember now how much all of us have been tangled in his confusion and his pain and how much each of us were trying to help him with our own experiences.
A very good example of how this community is always been more than a collection of silly or ego-inflated posts.
SoulCast - Keep Adsense for your free users. For your premium service users who pay a low monthly flat fee, give them the option of adding their own registered advertertizers such as Amazon at the bottom of their posts, avoiding that nasty tangle of figuring out who pays whom.
One of the very best blogs I ever read was someone asked "if you had a magic mirror who would you see"?
I think it went like that. I was all set to print a comical remark when ( and I do hate to say this) Mobil said something about seeing his grand parents etc that had passed on.
It impacted me huge. I said it was a marvelous sentiment and meant it.
I wish I could recall the blog specifically.
It got shoved up my ass anyhow as mobil attacked me as being soft and buttery and wanting to be nice to everyone. Man..I just cannot win.
It was a good blog though. If anyone should find it..it would be worthwhile publishing.
Moon..I can't recall darn it. I'd like to see it as It was heartfelt and real.
Thanks though..JD
How to improve: Get rid of the adolescents that run the place and moderate the rooms. I am so sick of their meaningless banter and attitudes.
The child that booted Copsunited has never been confronted as to why. the one dipstick, said it was a TOS violation..but not at all. It was the confrontation with a superior intellect that left he child out in the cold. What could he do but boot the guy or pee his knickers. The result was the the same.
You'll never make it to the big time with those poor attitudes.
No silverweasel, No one but YOU and your infantile view of the world KNOWS what happened. Wipe you nose and come clean.
You are a child like entity that could not face a real man. You acted and spoke as a child as you continue to do.
Your quest for money is blatantly obvious. The desire to "make money" is not to be diminished by your feeble protests. I agree that money should be the motive behind any enterprise if it is to survive. No problems there. What my problem is ..well frankly with you. Your are a foul little person. Mentally and emotionaly you should be seen by a competent professional to offer you help.
The rest of the staff .. well get real. Putting the entire brain trust together you could not come up with a door knob to fit the flap on a dog coop.
I was willing, at one time, to pay a modest amount to maintain the position as a contributor. Now? Hell, who's to say you'll even be in business six months from now. Not a penny .. not a single penny in tribute, cost or donation. Not while children are at the helm.
Put an adult in charge and it would be a different view.
Bloc head.. you are still a child and the intellectual level of a cucumber. Man who do you think your kidding? You deny being a part of this lost cause? Now who is the liar? Deny it all you want but it is the truth and YOU are the liar. Not me my weenie little freind.
It is the skunk that smells it's own stench first.
Remember that from your primer days.
If you are of stench mind look to your own rotten little foul world.
You continue to prove my point time after time. Are you ever going to enter the adult world?
No wonder you can not go further in your poor little misbegotten world. Sorry for your loss and by the way why did your parents bother giving you an Anglo name? You should have been wun hung lo. Stephen oh.. Stevie. (dimutive)
Ha ha yourself you lttile weasel. We all adore your sense of humor by the way. Yuppers