Bright Things Share Discussion Threads

[carl79] 15/3/2010 14:53

my guess is zero revenue...it sits on socialgo, not zocku...against the terms too so will likely get closed down ...

[ljsquash] 15/3/2010 13:13

That's so heroic of you putting your self out like that for us!
Only guessing where your eye might be wondering?

[airforce11] 15/3/2010 12:20

I hope MadamAmandasPerversePlayground is bringing in loads of revenue for BGT but I doubt it.

Currently only 20 members, I will keep a close eye on it to see how fast it grows.

[the analyst] 11/3/2010 11:34

I see that Spence has produced a tool to export membership from SocialGO into BuddyPress



Discussion on the pros and cons of SG vs BP, all seems reasonable:

[olly94] 09/3/2010 20:28

hi yump, follow your posts with interest, wana trade links simpley.com

[carl79] 09/3/2010 13:36

cool - thanks yump

[yump] 09/3/2010 12:40

@Carl79

Sure - if you go here and use the contact form at the bottom of the page, I'll make sure I respond:
wheelhub.co.uk

(Last time I put up an email address here it got scanned by something and spammed !)

[carl79] 09/3/2010 10:59

could we have a private chat? - im looking into this area in more detail, if you could help that would be fantastic

[yump] 09/3/2010 09:53

Yep - have own sites - 30% classified ad revenue 2nd. hand car parts - or should I say pre-owned ;-) and 70% affiliate and moving more towards affiliate each month.

[carl79] 09/3/2010 09:50

do you know much about affiliate marketing yump?

[carl79] 09/3/2010 09:48

parentbook is not a free site is it? It sits on a custom domain which is not possible on free...maybe they said that to encourage more signups in the first instance...

This site...

Not this one...

[yump] 09/3/2010 09:47

Very interesting spot TA.

Its a shop kind of adopting the affiliate marketing model - not sure if that's where they got the idea from.

For anyone's information who doesn't know...

If you plan to for instance become an affiliate for furniture, you create a site all about furniture eg. furniture liquidations and capture an audience by whatever means possible, including opt in email lists, latest offers pages etc.

Then you monetise it.

Depending on the area and the competitiveness you can of course launch straight in. But that is then a glaringly commercial site where getting a loyal audience is quite difficult and visitors won't twitter etc. quite so readily and help you expand your audience.

Very powerful having an audience based around a need.
Be interesting to see if that sort of site would make more money as an affiliate site than a product site. There have been some takeovers of retail domains by affiliates, because you can make more using price comparison than selling your own products. and less hassle.

[norbus] 09/3/2010 08:39

Good one TA.

[the analyst] 09/3/2010 00:25

Nice article about Parentbook, a site powered by SocialGO:

[norbus] 08/3/2010 15:06

They made a statement March last year; much depends what they decide on the fundraising.

[carl79] 08/3/2010 14:22

Fair point TA but dont you also get charged on bandwidth. So if you hammer it, you need to buy an extra 5Gb per month for arguments sake - this is over and above the monthly charge...They certainly do that on SG now but not sure how the Zocku plans were laid out (i thought virtually identical though...) So, i still dont buy the explanation even if the zocu sites are "hungry" because if they wanted more, they'd need to pay...

I'd be more inclined to believe a political withdrawal as opposed to a cash driven one.

Norbus, they have always been relatively US focussed - the currency they charge in is evidence of that. Even promo videos are US voice overs...there was one with Alex but that was taken down and replaced... Agree that they may refine slightly and would like to see an update...I doubt they'll do so on the back of BB chatter though. A formal letter into the company is a better bet but they will ultimately update when they have enough to tell us

[norbus] 08/3/2010 14:03

Carl79
I saw the move along with dropping 4.99, etc etc as signs of a new entity post the December reorganisation.. All good in my book & signifies BGT is following a new road map. For that reason, I think they will adopt a totally new business model,
beyond Regular and Premium. Vikram controls a top SEO company within his Venture Capital Company, and I think you will find a wholly new business plan, USA focused, being followed.. That is why, hoping my post might be read, I am calling for an update.

[the analyst] 08/3/2010 13:56

No, I don't buy the explanation, either, Carl

The "economy" bit could be true, though if the zocku networks are simply taking up too much bandwidth (video content and video chat), so they become uneconomical or loss-making, or they simply overload the system, adversely affecting hundreds of socialgo networks

It might be that an average zocku site takes up the bandwidth of 50 regular socialgo sites...

[ljsquash] 08/3/2010 13:48

It might just be a nicely worded - we are concentrating on version 2?

[carl79] 08/3/2010 13:41

TA, hmmm. I am taking that with a pinch of salt.

Unless they are talking huge surge in premium sign ups which is a big assumption to make, then their reference to "economy" is a false one. Zocku sites pay handsomply for the service where as the majority of SG networks pay diddly squat...

Now, if economics DID dictate their decision then the implied notion of time being spent on SG as opposed to Zocku where signups bring in $50 a month would say that the amount of effort involved in bringing in $50 on Zocku is outweighed by the amount of $ that same effort brings in on SG...if you follow...

Moving on from this, we know that porn sells, and sells very well, so you'd think setting up a site dedicated to adult material would be fairly easy and for those already that way inclined, not require a big sales push - ergo, BGT are making a whole heap of cash from SG, (because making money on Zocku is a cinch)

I personally dont think we are making money hand over fist yet so dont buy the explanation...I actually thought Zocku would be the cash engine for the first few years

[the analyst] 08/3/2010 13:21

Little snippet over at Getsatisfaction in reply to the question, "Is Zocku Just Falling Down A Hill Or Was It Pushed?", from one of the users...

As ever, it's worth taking the 'official' reply with a pinch of salt, because we have no idea about the REAL reason zocku has been taken down - it could easily be that they stopped taking on new customers to be able to create an exit more easily in the future

If as they suggest in their reply, it's because of "huge surge in signups with our non adult platform", then that would be nice :)



"Hi Guys,

GO IM is on the way back. We had to take it offline as it was slowing networks down and do some more refinement work on it to resolve the page speeds. This is almost complete.

Regarding the rest of the platform, it is not going anywhere. You guys are free to use the Zocku platform as you wish.

We have however had a huge surge in signups with our non adult platform SocialGO which is where our priority has been recently. Unfortunately its simple economics that have driven this priority.

If you have any bugs, by all means report them to the support desk so they can be dealt with in good time.

I hope that helps.

Steve"

[the analyst] 08/3/2010 13:17

Some time ago I looked into how to track the number of premium users. Obviously, the first difficulty is that most of the premium sites remove all links to socialGO, so link-backs can't be used.

But, I did find a little bit of code in the html that was common to the sites, which could be used to track numbers...

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to search for html code that is not actually expressed on the website.

So, I gave up

[tomboyb] 08/3/2010 13:01

many thanks carl. am looking at it now.gl.