Rambling About Vision and New Site Features

Martin,
Most magazine subscripions cost around $30-35/ year. That would be about $3 per month. Would that be enough to keep the site up and running? There is cerainly more content here than in a dozen magazines. I’m in favor of the Wiki but I think no on the repository. SketchUp already has a warehouse. We all need to get in line and use the on-line store that you have set up. I’ve checked the prices and they are very good.We also need to click on the ads on LumberJocks when we wish to look up a company’s products. Awareness usually solves problems. Martin, you’ve done a great job. Hang in and we will see what we can do to help you.

Tom

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

I pay for my Finewoodworking.com subscription, and I don’t spend half as much time there as I done here. To keep a sight like this going I’m willing to pay a subscription. It’s always hard to take a free site and start charging for it, but I think most people here see the value in the site.

I was just reading a message over at The Wood Whisperer, and he’s starting to deal with the same issues.

-- Mike - http://inquisitivewoodworker.blogspot.com/

I’m kind of in same range as Tom in a 30-35 per year range. Get it out of the monthly column and it cut down on the amount of having to track and prod people. Realizing it would all be electronic, but getting a $5.00 bill every month is hardly worth the problem.

We appreciate your efforts and want you to continue, so we are willing to support anyway that we can.

Martin I like your restoration of the next and prev on the 1/2 picture. It would be nice if the next button on the last picture goes to close, instead of having to go to the top. I don’t have a suggestion on the prev when on the first picture.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Martin, let’s just take the facts and submit them to the Major tool maunfacturers.
1,769 woodworkers… that turns into 1,769 saws & saw blades

3,003 projects, turns into a very large amount of sandpaper (except for Dennis Mitchell), gallons and gallons of stains and finishes, breathing devices, dust collection, planes, sanders not to mention this year alone I’ve bought 5 or 6 gallons of Titebond II wood glue.

Certainly there are some manufacturers that have the vision for a strickly woodworking audience.

And there are a lot of us who need to buy new table saws, sanders and planes. The right manufacturers could offer us an incentive to buy here from them.

-- http://ye-olde-cabinet-shoppe.com/

Martin, do what you have to do to keep this site up. If it requires a subscription, count me in, like others have said, I get more here than any magazine I’ve subscribed to. The workman is worthy of his hire; ain’t no reason you should bear the expense for our benefit.

-- When you give someone a chance it may well be their last.

Martin, I’d have no problem paying for premium feature access. I do think it makes sense to keep portions of the site free, however, so people can continue to join and see what a wonderful site it is before moving up to the premium services. This is by far the best woodworkers’ site around. The $30-35 annual model appeals to me as well.

In regards to the time and work involved, please know that many of us would be happy to assist in any way possible – anything you can do to distribute workload, I’d be more than willing to help out.

Many kudos to you, sir.

-- --==[ Pappy ]==--

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Just to avoid any confusion – LJ will always have FREE membership, the fee could possibly apply only to some premium features in the future and NOT to any features that are currently for free.

-- Martin, http://lumberjocks.com | My Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Martin_Sojka/1357216976

if you get the sister sites up, I may never leave the computer!... being that I bounce between woodworking and homereno – as many of us I think… there is a lot of crossover there… but still different audiences. as for the gardening, I’ve had to put mine on hold for the past few years while I get the yard/house ready. Was just about to start looking through the back issues of Organic Gardening, and all those seed catalogs to plan my spring. – this is an area I’d love to be able to benefit from a similar brotherhood as we have here – even save and swap seems with. Hope that you can keep everything working, and as always, I’m happy to help in anyway I can.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Vincent Van Gogh -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

I have no problem with a premium fee but I would prefer to pay a yearly fee than have to keep up with a monthly payment. This site has become quite important to me.

Martin
Some websites start with a paypal account and ask for donations. You should start that immediately.

-- ..... art for lifes sake ... danwalters@lumberjocks.com

Martin,
Your at the crossroads. Get bigger or stay as a free site as is. Although it’s dollars for the website development when you consider 1771 patrons at 35 per year it’s 62k. It’s a start but not nearly enough to employ additional people, increase software and hardware etc. The money is with the sponsors and I believe you and the others creating websites for woodworkers are on the cutting edge of replacing or at least competing with magazines and subscriptions and of course getting the advertising dollars…

Maybe you need some strategy sessions with some of your competitors like the wood whisperer and others with some experts from this field to strike on an idea that will generate revenue required. You now this is how the Google, Amazon, and others started-don’t give up your the next generation…. All we desire is to be on the ground floor and know when you IPO the site…...

Look forward to seeing the site continue at cost or free..Also look forward to hearing about your next move.

-- Fred, San Antonio, Texas

I say we all visit the LJ store and buy ourselves a T-shirt! I already have a couple. Did you ever get one, Obi? I think if all 1800 of us coughed up a few bucks for a shirt that not only would it be a nice short term boost in revenue for Martin, but it would be a good recruiting tool since you’d obviously have to wear it every time you left the house. In that case maybe we should all buy two… I’m sure that first one would wear out pretty quick with daily use. Oh by the way… I’m in on the subscription idea. I still can’t believe that everything we get already isn’t costing us anything!

-- JP, Shelbyville, KY

I’d happily pay a subsripction fee Martin. I think a little of all or the above works as well, already bought the t-shirt…:)

LJ could be a great on-line gallery. Commisions on items sold, etc…

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

I have been watching this site for awhile and like the information and love all the projects, I would be willing to pay for the site also.

Like many others I like small boxes, they are a challange for me.

-- Ron Central, CA

Well you sure have a winner here! For me it was the tool bar. I wish I had that going for me when I use to do hosting and publishing web sites. The only thing I would do is to try and keep the community environment. I am not sure about the Map with people’s addresses. I am not real comfortable with the security issues of that; you have photos of some expensive tools and the inside of there home which you can tell if they have something that would be of value by looking at there home. I was not aware this information would be posted and I have been thinking of taking it off. Anyway it’s a shame we have to be that careful but in today’s world that’s how it is. I would be concerned about the liability it posses to you.

-- Just another day in paradise.

I think I need a t-shirt!

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

I’m more than willing to pay for membership and I think the $30-35.00 price as suggested would be fine. What I fear though Martin, is that when you start inviting advertisers, we start seeing pop-ups, pop-unders, adware, spyware, hijackers, etc. We need a way to report these nasties and you need to maintain absolute control of them with the ability to give them the boot when needed. Other than that, you’ve created a fantastic website. Keep up the great work!

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!

Sandhill —with the map, it’s recommended in the Help files to either place your marker in a general region (really helpful for other woodworkers to know who they can meet up with in person) or, if you are a professional woodworker and want people to be able to find your shop/showroom etc, to be more specific with their location.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Good Morning Martin – First off, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I apprecite this site. The quality and character of people that use it are unmatched in my mind. The content has proven to be not only a resource but an inspiration as well. I, as I’m sure many other will attest to, visit the site daily. There is something here for everyone from the accomplished woodworker (and there is a lot of talent here let me tell you) to the first time hobyist. We’ve got, artistic folks, turners, furnture makers, carvers, and home remodelers doing everything from building new shops to producing those incredible “small wooden boxes”, all of which bring something to the table. By all means please feel free to share this feeback with anyone and everyone.

Now, to follow up on Thos. Angle’s suggestion. Would you give us an education and help us understand what the current sources of revenue are? I think the apparel store is obvious but I have to admit that’s where my knowledge ends. What else can we do, from the existing resources, that would benefit the site?

-- I've cut that board three times and it's still too short!

That’s a really good suggestion, Shaun.
I know that there are some “behind the scene” ways to get an income. For example, I think that the more links we use in our discussions and the more people click on these links, has a snowball effect which results in more income.

More Obvious Strategies:
- buy apparel and tools through the LJ Store
- put the LJ banners on your personal websites (which increases traffic, which increases interest by advertisers)
- print off flyers etc posted by Martin and distribute everywhere (again, increased traffic = $$)
- use your connections: send them to the advertising page—you just never know who will want to use this site

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I do not mind the fee for the premium items, and the price that everyone has suggested seems fair. With the cost of maintaining the web site, storage, etc, some compensation seems appropriate.

I also like newguy’s suggestion about the IPO (as long as we can get some shares..haha). Imagine, Facebook is being touted as $15 Billion market value. Of course, they have a few more people in their community than Lumberjocks does. But, they started small as well.

Maybe one of the woodworking magazines would have a tie-in of some kind as well? We have had a couple of contests with Popular Woodworking, maybe that would be something to follow up on.

I am interested in helping out where I can Martin.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

Martin,

I agree with Dan Walters’ comment regarding the PayPal account and taking donations as a possible immediate infusion of funds. I see this community as very similar to the open-source software development community in terms of camaraderie. That model has helped many a person/site in software genre as you probably know.

Aside from that, I’m with Tom Angle and Karson on the price and I would like to see it as a annual rate too.

-- Jeff, St. Paul, MN

$30-35 is good for me to.

If increasing traffic will help . . . to springboard off what MsDebbie said we each could post a link to this site in the other places we visit. I know that Google groups have all sorts of “communities”. I visit a couple on a regular basis and will be posting this link next time I visit.

Martin . . . I do not believe that Amazon will ship to Canada. All you US folks get all sorts of deals there. I believe that Canadian Tire has an affiliate program and every good canuck knows about Canadian Tire.

Oh . . . Dear Wife (DW) is very much into gardening and home design. She has designed several houses for relatives and has designed our last two homes. So you would probably get MrsZuki along for the ride.

Scottb – way to go for organic gardening . . . we have been doing it for years.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

Martin;

These are all great people that you have managed to give a source to, enabling us to learn and teach each other.

We are most willing to keep a good thing going, as mentioned already a great deal of us spend more than enough time here. (much more than we should in many cases).

A very quick and painless way to monitize the site would be to add some google ads. If all the visitors to this forum were to click on the ads that captured our interest, it would add up to a fair amount of money for your coffiers, without being obtrusive. I imagine the revenue generated would greatly exceed the mentioned membership fees discussed, while at the same time providing a service to your members.

Just a thought!

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

don’t we already have google ads on the sidebar? or is it something different

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)