Ted R. - Dogster
Transcription
Ted R. - Dogster
Community Development and Participatory Media Startup Epicenter March 28, 2007 Ted Rheingold Top Dog, Dogster, Inc. [email protected] blog.dogster.com January ’04 - March ‘07 January 1, 2005 • 70,831 members • 70,303 pet profiles January 1, 2006 • 165,451 members • 177,529 pet profiles January 1, 2007 • 303,445 members • 335,004 pet profiles Core Components of PassionCentric Web Communities Great, Profitable Community Sites • \ Community & Participatory Sites are WAIT businesses • You can bring a user to a website but you can’t make them do anything • Heavy spending up front rarely leads to growth that scales at the same rate • Work on building features that are truly popular and loved by your community • The longer you can afford to be in business, the better your odds of success Stay In Your Impact Horizon • The Impact Horizon: your product must have an impact on your community within this time frame • Building product that will release beyond the clear vision within your Impact Horizon great reduces the likelihood of it’s success • For Dogster: First year was 3-4 weeks Second year was 6-8 weeks Third year: was 2-3 months Fourth year is 4-6 months Community Is Your Most Valuable Asset • Your community or users are your customers • Treat them like dogs... er... GODS! • Don’t leverage them, make tools they can leverage • Know that everything you are doing is for them Community Builder Mistakes • Communities look after themselves • To build a community all you need is to offer them community features • UGC is a commodity • Your community will not mind that you are monetizing them Community Musts • Listen, listen, listen (but filter) • Develop guidelines and rules, and enforce them consistently. The less rules the better • Reflect your community’s passion as much as possible throughout your service • Keeping your community happy and at ease is just as critical as keeping your servers and site up What is UGC? • UGC = User Generated Content = a very inhuman term for a very human action. • People participate with an expectation that it will bring them increased rewards. • People have a strong emotional connection to sites they participate in. • Do not undervalue a person’s action as a pure commodity • Don’t undercut the benefits they expect to get from their participation Reflect User Passion • Everywhere in site. Design, UI, messaging, color palette, vernacular... • Be sincere • Amplify their passions • Don’t leverage your users (give them tools they can leverage for their goals) Revenue! Primary Revenue Streams • Sponsors • Direct ad buys } Integrated Ad Campaigns • Premium memberships • Virtual gifts • Bulk ads Think Sponsors • Get the first one! • Never too small to have a sponsor • They can even be like an angel (our first sponsor worth $150k) • Caution! Sponsor don’t scale that well Circle of Trust Integrated Brand Campaign • Stand-alone direct advertising • Use different parts of your site to non-deceptive allow for advertising. • Write the copy for the advertiser and keep it in the community voice • Get the advertiser gives something of benefit to community (contests, special feature, fame) • If the advertiser is a trusted member of the community, their campaign ROI will soar past banner ad results Bulk Ad Networks and Affiliate Programs • Expect adsense to pay for monthly server fees. Anything more requires serving millions per day or outsmarting the system • Network ads sell you on high CPM, disappoint you with insufficient inventories of acceptable ads • Affiliate network bounties don’t add up unless you are selling thousands of items a month Woof, Meow & Thanks Check the sites: www.dogster.com & www.catster.com Slides available: blog.dogster.com Ted Rheingold - Top Dog [email protected]
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