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[closed] Wordpress MU Profitable? (23 posts)

  1. stealthgear
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Do you think that running a wordpress mu site in a Niche category can be profitable? If so, how?

  2. suleiman
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    maybe if you get tens of thousands of bloggers with hundreds of thousands of hits each day, then maybe you could make enough revenue off of ads.

    I don't really know because to tell you the truth I kind of just started something here for kicks, and i'm working with a really small community right now (only about 90 blog signups with close to a dozen "active" blogs).

    I would ask Farms or Quenting, since they're communities are much, much larger.

  3. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Assuming you picked the "right" niche category, you could be profitable with a mix of advertising & paid features, even if you offered upgrades to hosted version of regular WP.

    I've got around 300 regular bloggers in a highly specific niche, and my system is locked down to new ones. I get pretty decent traffic site-wide and after we are moved to a better server and can expand, then I think it could be monstrous.

    Too bad my own is not-for-profit, although we do take donations. :)

  4. stealthgear
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    andrea_r thanks for such a good response. Quick questoin: how do you offer the upgrade to the hosted version of WP? Are you referring to the WP regular install (single)? And, is there a simple way to add these paid features in WP? I have installed both once, but I didn't see that in MU.

  5. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I don't currently offer it, but I was thinking of it. As far as I worked it out, it would be a manual upgrade to a customized WP regular install (single), and we'd code what we needed ourselves.

    Currently there is no simple way to offer paid features, but people around here have done it and are working on plugins for it.
    http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/search.php?q=paid+features

  6. otmtoy
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I am totally new to MU but my guess is the probability of making some dough is definitely higher when compared to running your own single blog since you get revenue from all the other blogs that your users are running. If you keep plugging away I am sure there is a good chance of success - or am I wrong!

  7. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    If it were "that" easy we'd all be sitting around a table in the Virgin Islands, sipping on a beverage, and discussing the weather instead of posting on a forum. ;)

    Of course it depends on what you deem as profitable as well. Technically, if you make any amount over what you spend then it is profitable right? Just not to the degree of making it worth it.

    If you're hoping for some sort of miracle money maker, best keep looking. In order to "make some sort of living", even in part, you'd need a couple of servers, and tens of thousands of users, and tons of traffic to boot. Definitely not something that can be done overnight, in a week, or a month or two.

  8. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Totally. The best I've done so far is make enough to pay for hosting. Whee.

    I agree with luna (naturally, on pretty much everything)- elbow grease and hard work is the key here. Of course, if you happen to like or love what you're doing, then you don't mind living on less.

  9. quenting
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I have a somewhat large MU community that makes enough for my small company to live off it. My company being just myself right now :), although I hire external developpers to work for me too on a contract basis. However i am neither targetting a niche nor running an english language website. Advertising in non-english on the web is quite late compared with english so if you want to run another language website it might be more difficult.

    Regarding numbers, it all comes to the niche, and whether you can/want to do advertising on blogs or not. If you can't do adevertising and want to run based on subscriptions, you'll need the numbers. If you can do advertising and the niche is a popular web advertising market, making money out of it would probably be not that difficult.

  10. Farms3
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I'm a bit different - I don't want to make any money directly out of my WPMU communities (60K+ over three sites) - but I would rather like it if they purchased an Edublogs Premium account: http://edublogs.org/services :)

    Having 'paid features' would be good, but in the end I'd like to think that the more users I have the more people I can introduce to great ed tech products which can help them transform teaching and learning online and support the free stuff... at least that's the plan :D

    Just from a personal perspective, advertising sucks - if you're in blog advertising or big league stuff like my day job (theage.com.au) more often than not what you do is determined by the marketers - bleugh.

  11. Elemem
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I sure hope so. Still bulding the site, and trying to make it all very worthwile for user. It turns out to be quite a bit of work.

    To those saying "niche", does that mean you won't "allow" users to have a blog about something totally unrelated?

    I have not thought much about focusing on a niche yet.

  12. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Hey quentin, I still think you have a niche market there. ;) Also, if we could get that large to support one or tow people full-time, that's all I'm asking. :)

    (Diversify! Diversify!)

    @Elemem - for our site, it is niche based as in it is for a certain kind of person. Homeschoolers. They don't have to write about homeschooling (although many try to stay on topic) but they have to *be* homeschoolers to sign up. We pretty much take their word for it. We've covered our bases in the TOS with a "we can delete it if we want for whatever reason", but we've tried to make it community-like and encouraged people to "socialize" with one another on the site.

    I've thought up easily a half-dozen more niche markets to attempt at some point.

  13. nathanrdotca
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I thought it would be, but I'm having so many damn problems with it that it's just frustrating.

    I can't upgrade the thing without running into problems and when I do run into problems and ask for help, it's like jumping through hoops to get the help I need, even when I offer to pay.

    I thought it would be a good idea to make a few bucks, now I'm starting to think twice.

    Now I need something to convert a WPMU database back into WP. I doubt anyone's going to help me with that, either so I'll just muddle through and slowly destroy a customer's blog.

  14. drmiketemp
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Actually it's probably more that you've insulted the people trying to help you.

  15. nathanrdotca
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    I asked repeatedly for help on one certain thing and people kept ignoring me. How do you think I'd feel, huh?

    And your condescending attitude, lording it over me. I've been using the Internet for 12 years, do you think I'm some ignorant kid or something? You have some nerve, you know that? I tried to explain, and you wouldn't listen. I tried to apologise, and you still wouldn't listen. How dare you take that condescending attitude with me and treat me as if I know nothing. How dare you.

    I have NEVER acted as though I was ungrateful for help. NEVER. I politely asked for help and people kept focusing on the upgrade, which wasn't what I needed help on. I mentioned several times that the issue was under control. Can you read? I communicated that very kindly and politely and people just wouldn't read. How would you feel if your requests for help weren't read? How do you think you'd feel?

    Consider that next time you're about to give someone a condescending attitude. Just because you may know more about WordPress than some people doesn't make you better than anyone. It's your attitude. People should be willing to help for the satisfaction of helping others, not because they get pleasure out of lording their knowledge over others.

    I asked for help about an admin panel issue three times and nobody read a damn thing I typed. YOU TELL ME how you'd feel if you were me.

    I even offered to pay for help to get the problem fixed fast. I never - NEVER - insulted anyone. I politely told others several times that the problem I wanted help on was NOT the upgrade. I said that quite a few times, do you need me to remind you?

    You know what you can do with your condescending attitude and I'm too polite to mention it here.

    Support around here really stinks if they're going to allow one person to act like a condescending prick. I'm going to have a word with some official on WordPress if I can find one. This is completely nuts.

    I asked for help. Not attitude- help. That's all I wanted. I was very polite and very kind about it and your attitude just stinks to high heaven. I don't know who you think you are but you need to lose that attitude. It's not making you any friends.

  16. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    How about you consider your next move, which should be to RTFM.

    Oh, you've been using the internet for 12 years? Wow. I'm so damn impressed.

    If you would have read the directions, it specifically lays it out that you NEED to have a solid working knowledge Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc. If you are not comfortable with that, then you should "run" to wordpress.com.

    You're saying you "tore up a customers site".

    To me, that tells me you "wish you were a web developer". Any decent developer would have absolutely NOT touched a live site without working on a backup first.

    So now, you want to be an asshat to someone whom has put in a lot of time and effort to help folks, and is one of the more knowledgeable folks around here when it comes to MU. Shame, shame on you.

    I could tell you exactly what your little fopen problem is. If you were worth half the weight of a true development professional, you'd already know the answer.

    So, have a nice day trying to figure it out. Too bad your "customer" has to pay the price for your incompetence.

  17. drmiketemp
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    And would you please stop emailing me? I didn't invite you to do so, and you're interferring with the work that I do.

    Folks were trying to help you. You insulted them, were rude to folks and made them feel like they were wasting their time. Maybe you need to go back trhough and reread the posts that you made.

    I was very polite and very kind about it

    No, you weren't.

    edit: Oh and you owe me $85 for each email. That's my going rate and, if you had asked first before emailing, I would have quoted you the price. Payment is due and you can send it via paypal to the email address you emailed.

  18. ekusteve
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Hummm...I thought we got beyond this. Guess I was wrong. Your post was, once again, uncalled for lunabyte.

    Steve

  19. drmiketemp
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Oh, he emailed support at wp.org.

    edit: No, actually it wasn't Steve. if you going to go after folks here, may I suggest not having a bias? It's in very bad taste that you think it's acceptable that we take abuse like this.

    reedit: I am so sick of this shit.

    rereedit: By the way, Steve, please feel free to go after Nathan. He's the one throwing around the insults. I think we've even been pointing this out to you when it occurs. You may also want to go read the posters threads. Granted he got someone to delete the major one when he went out of his way to insult folks but you'll see a pattern.

  20. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Uncalled for?

    UNCALLED FOR?

    I beg to differ, actually.

    If every 2 bit tard walked in here and bashed folks trying to assist them, where would that be? Nowhere.

    So, IMHO, when someone does try it, because they are so "damned experienced" and "above" answering a few simple questions so someone can help them out, a stand has to be made. If not, next thing you know, this place will really go to hell in a hand basket.

    So no, I don't think sticking up for the Doc, who was unfairly harassed by this assclown on the forums as well as THROUGH EMAIL (which is completely uncalled for) is out of line at all.

    So, if ya don't like it, by all means, don't let the door hit ya.

  21. drmiketemp
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Get abuse and lies from Automattic staff.

    Get abuse and lies from those we try to help.

    Aint' this fun?

  22. ekusteve
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Don't let the door hit me...funny. I'm not going anywhere...you can do all the name calling you want, but you don't intimidate me.

    You call the man an "assclown", "2 bit tard", "asshat", etc.

    I'm beginning to think you may be a 15-year-kid who needs to get off the computer and go outside and play.

    If we have a moderator here, he/she should ban both of your accounts.

    Steve

  23. lunabyte
    Member
    Posted 16 years ago #

    Well, I'm not going anywhere either.

    I call it like I see it, and if you don't like it, tough. Sorry to rain on your parade, but the folks here that have an intricate knowledge of this software, and are willing to talk with people about it for free out of their personal time, asking for nothing in return and to just help out a project as best they can, absolutely do NOT need to be abused by you, or any other uncouth fucktard out there. While those may only be a fraction of posts/users, those should be dealt with.

    We have no moderator, and are lucky enough that on occasion the spam posts get deleted.

    I can assure, I'm no kid, son. I will assure you though, that along with many a competent user around these boards, I am fed up with the personal attacks upon folks who simply are here to try and help.

    I NEVER instigate. I will respond, I will be blunt, and I do not back down from a fight. If someone wants to go on the warpath against someone who had devoted thousands of hours of their personal time to helping others, you're damn well right I'll be the first to grab their back.

    You're comments have done nothing but incite further abuse, and on the contrary, it should be those who decide to instigate that should be disallowed. Self-defense posting is not something I'm fond of, but I have no problem doing it when needed.

    Now, do you want to continue this little game you started, dear child? If so, I'm not even close to being warmed up yet.

    Or, OTOH, you can get off your damn high horse attitude, and get back to business.

About this Topic

  • Started 17 years ago by stealthgear
  • Latest reply from lunabyte