281–290 of 336 posts
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Piwik isn't popular with me just because I don't want to run it myself (and keep it upgraded, etc), and the hosted version is as bad at tracking as GA is.
We send all of our logs to CloudWatch Logs and then set up metrics for 200, 300, 400, and 500 http responses. It will graph all of them for you right in the console and you can add alerting if you need it.
Ok, you have a sponsorship model that works because you're probably very famous. That doesn't solve anyone's problem, because almost no one is famous. How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner?
May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…
Ok, you have a sponsorship model that works because you're probably very famous. That doesn't solve anyone's problem, because almost no one is famous. How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner?
May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…
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If you can't make money from it, then it's not an absurd conclusion at all. Of course, it means one needs a day job, but such is life.
Specifically, the day job shouldn't be too enjoyable if you're making money from it. Once it is, you should start doing it for free and find a job you find less enjoyable. That just follows in a straightforward way. Now, this may not seem absurd to you, but I dare say it will to most people.
Signed, Captain Obvious
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I kinda agree with you; I run a personal website, it isn't very popular (and I don't update it often - hmm, maybe there's a link there!) - but it is my website, and I've kept the domain active since 1998 or thereabouts. ie - a "labor of love" How do I pay for it? Well, I reach around to my back pocket for my wallet, and... I don't have ads, I don't have a sponsorship, and I don't care - what I have and what I put on…
Yeah, that's fair. I'm doing the same thing with recipestasher.com. I lose about $400/yr on it, but I really like using it and so do a few other people. No ads, no clickbait crap. But, I realize that I'm quite privileged to be able to do it.
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Patreon doesn't work perfectly Where does patreon fail, aside from adoption and popularity?
Patreon has the problem that I can't support someone with $0.50 per month because of transaction costs. Almost all patreon tiers start at $5/month and go up from there. There is a very small percentage of things I use the internet for that I am willing to pay $5/month for.
The like the fact Troy has his ^own^ blog and can make his own call. There are alternatives ways to think about ^how^ a blog makes money. [0]
[0] Dave Winer, "How I made over $2 million with this blog" ~ http://scripting.com/stories/2009/02/11/howIMadeOver2Million...
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Let's imagine that not all the advertisers are that shady, and just don't know better. Or if I wish to serve a subset of them, how break into this business? How get the first batch of customers? I have some ideas about build a server-side ad-network, but because I imagine is very hard to get customers I dismiss it, for the same reason: You need to be "famous/large" to attract customer in the ad-space.
Well, who do you think your customers are? Publishers want someone to handle monetisation of their website. If they get enough traffic, they want that someone to work in-house, but if they don't, they want some one (ad network) to do it for them. Advertisers want impressions/clicks/performance. A (successful) ad network needs to do both, so bootstrapping invariably looks something like matchmaking in the very beginni…
Mine are at http://elmalabarista.com