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Lets Make a new Adverts.ie

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Comments

  • #102
    sw33t_r3v3ng3
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 537 ✭✭✭sw33t_r3v3ng3


    rovoagho wrote: »
    I'm an IE registrar, pick a domain and I'll register it FOC.

    Does this basically mean that it'll be a hell of a lot easier to register a .ie domain ?


  • #103
    Trojan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,413 ✭✭✭✭Trojan


    Question: what happens if this project is wildly successful? Who thinks they own it?

    🎙️ The Recognized Authority Podcast



  • #104
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    I would be almost certain adverts would file for an injunction and have the clone site taken down just a quick before taking legal action against the parties involved.


  • #105
    Trojan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,413 ✭✭✭✭Trojan


    I agree with you there would likely be legal action, but I'd suspect chances are it'd be between participants of this thread, and not involving Adverts.ie whatsoever.

    🎙️ The Recognized Authority Podcast



  • #106
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,820 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    rovoagho wrote: »
    Despite my handle, you actually know me, and you wouldn't be so derisive if you were talking to my former self.
    You have me at a disadvantage.
    Adverts.ie is /not/ trivial, but this is /not/ Adverts.ie. It's a simple classifieds site that would take a year or more to become non-trivial. So do us a favour and lump in with some constructive commentary or help, or just don't comment. Two word smart-arsed answers serve /no/ purpose.
    The technical challenges of rolling out a successful website are never trivial. I've built an in-house business application from scratch that is in constant use by up to ten users; I'm tangentially involved with a business that provides web services to multinational corporations and UK government departments and is in use by thousands of simultaneous users worldwide. There's nothing trivial about the technical challenges of either of them.

    You can build a trivial site without any major technical challenges, but it will remain a trivial site. If the ambition is to build something non-trivial, then the time to think about the non-trivial technical challenges is at the start.


  • #107
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Trojan wrote: »
    Question: what happens if this project is wildly successful? Who thinks they own it?

    I think you are putting the cart before the invention of the wheel there.
    Celeron Media wrote: »
    I would be almost certain adverts would file for an injunction and have the clone site taken down just a quick before taking legal action against the parties involved.

    There a zillion market/for sale sites. What makes one a clone?


  • #108
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    There a zillion market/for sale sites. What makes one a clone?
    This thread and title is enough evidence :P


  • #109
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,820 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    beauf wrote: »
    I think you are putting the cart before the invention of the wheel there.
    That's more of what I'm talking about. Why bother anticipating problems when you can just deal with them when they blindside you?


  • #110
    Call Me Jimmy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,449 ✭✭✭Call Me Jimmy


    I think your sig quote is coming into play here oscar :P happened to notice it there.

    Yes technically a listing site can happen in a relatively short time but the key ingredient in most projects is usually non-technical.


  • #111
    Jonny Blaze
    Closed Accounts Posts: 753 ✭✭✭Jonny Blaze


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    There's nothing trivial about the technical challenges of either of them.

    You can build a trivial site without any major technical challenges, but it will remain a trivial site. If the ambition is to build something non-trivial, then the time to think about the non-trivial technical challenges is at the start.

    Spot on!

    And further to that, i would say that the idea that you can mash up something out of vbulletins or other x template and expect to attract users is pretty crazy.

    I mean I wouldn't use a site that looked like early adverts or equivalent now, even if I had helped develop it myself!

    The only way you're going to realistically have a viable platform is if we put in the effort to build something more polished and therefore competitive.

    At the end of the day they are all just marketplaces with some bells on, but the devil lies in the detail, and gui / ux design will be an important factor in order for the site to be able to be taken seriously.


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  • #112
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    That's more of what I'm talking about. Why bother anticipating problems when you can just deal with them when they blindside you?

    Thats not anticipating problems. That being Walter Mitty, and having a debate about what corporate jet to buy.


  • #113
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Jonny Blaze wrote: »
    ...I mean I wouldn't use a site that looked like early adverts or equivalent now, ...

    Thats like building the empire state building from the top down.


  • #114
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    Just a thought: If this new site is to be created and is successful like Adverts, but like any growing successful website or business there comes a point when additional resources are needed to maintain and keep up with demands, so a revenue stream would be needed at some point. Where would the funding come from?


  • #115
    jonnny68
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,670 ✭✭✭jonnny68


    Great news and I wish you every success got barred for a week myself by some jumped up moderator on the main adverts thread for suggesting a new classified site.


  • #116
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Celeron Media wrote: »
    This thread and title is enough evidence :P

    How so? Isn't the idea to build a site that isn't like adverts is now?


  • #117
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    beauf wrote: »
    How so? Isn't the idea to build a site that isn't like adverts is now?

    " Lets Make a new Adverts.ie". The title mostly gave it away.


  • #118
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,820 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    beauf wrote: »
    Thats not anticipating problems. That being Walter Mitty, and having a debate about what corporate jet to buy.

    Are you saying you don't think this project could possibly be successful enough to make any money?


  • #119
    Call Me Jimmy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,449 ✭✭✭Call Me Jimmy


    this ain't about money it's about our mutual passion for ads... that are free!


  • #120
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,820 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Call Me Jimmy wrote: »
    this ain't about money it's about our mutual passion for ads... that are free!
    A wise person told me years ago that if you're setting up a business for any reason other than to make a profit, your business is doomed to failure.

    You may not be thinking of this as a business, but it will have expenses. If it doesn't have revenues, it will be gone within a year.

    As soon as money starts changing hands, mutual passions quickly take a back seat. And if you're not thinking about these issues now, all you're doing is deferring them until they become serious problems.


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  • #121
    rovoagho
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,151 ✭✭✭rovoagho


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    You have me at a disadvantage.

    I do, and I apologise but that will remain the case, at least for the moment.
    The technical challenges of rolling out a successful website are never trivial. I've built an in-house business application from scratch that is in constant use by up to ten users; I'm tangentially involved with a business that provides web services to multinational corporations and UK government departments and is in use by thousands of simultaneous users worldwide. There's nothing trivial about the technical challenges of either of them.

    You can build a trivial site without any major technical challenges, but it will remain a trivial site. If the ambition is to build something non-trivial, then the time to think about the non-trivial technical challenges is at the start.

    I absolutely disagree. I've rolled out simple sites with commercial open source webapp themes and plugins that rake in tens of thousands of euros per month, and I manage other sites that started on a shoestring, and turn over millions per year. They looked awful when they started up and behaved badly, but there was a demand for them and so they succeeded. Now they're non-trivial, and of course that has to be planned for and catered to. But overthinking before launch is as responsible for failures as underthinking. I've seen a large number of valid projects fail because of ridiculous long-winded arguments about domain names, for example.

    Release early, release often, as the fella said.

    (And, to complete the quote from ESR - a dick, but an often correct dick - "...and listen to your customers". I know a firm that could benefit from that mantra...)

    And I'm sorry, but I'm not going to acknowledge that classifieds sites are difficult under any circumstances, it's just a nonsense. The work is in the userbase, not the code. A monkey could write the code. Monkeys have.


  • #122
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    Call Me Jimmy wrote: »
    this ain't about money it's about our mutual passion for ads... that are free!

    I don't mean to put a spanner in the works here, but you haven't used or logged into your adverts in 3 years.

    Every successful app/website/business module needs to start making money at some point.


  • #123
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Celeron Media wrote: »
    " Lets Make a new Adverts.ie". The title mostly gave it away.

    Except in this case it didn't. What adverts is, and what was proposed in the first topic are entirely different.


  • #124
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    beauf wrote: »
    Except in this case it didn't. What adverts is, and what was proposed in the first topic are entirely different.

    Still sounds like adverts :D
    so why not make a stand and build an actual community based site for selling unneeded items.


  • #125
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Celeron Media wrote: »
    I don't mean to put a spanner in the works here, but you haven't used or logged into your adverts in 3 years....

    There are other possibilities....


  • #126
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Are you saying you don't think this project could possibly be successful enough to make any money?

    I'm saying you're counting the eggs before they've hatched. before you even bought the chickens. TBH I preferred the cart analogy, its the same thing though.


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  • #127
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    There are other possibilities....

    "Build it and they will come"


  • #128
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Celeron Media wrote: »
    Still sounds like adverts :D

    Thats a bit like confusing Dido with Slayer.


  • #129
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Celeron Media wrote: »
    "Build it and they will come"

    Kinda missing the point. People maybe on adverts perhaps commercially with a different profile than they have on boards.


  • #130
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    A wise person told me years ago that if you're setting up a business for any reason other than to make a profit, your business is doomed to failure.

    You may not be thinking of this as a business, but it will have expenses. If it doesn't have revenues, it will be gone within a year.

    As soon as money starts changing hands, mutual passions quickly take a back seat. And if you're not thinking about these issues now, all you're doing is deferring them until they become serious problems.

    Thats a fair point. But its waaayyyy too early.


  • #131
    irishgrover
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,496 ✭✭✭irishgrover


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    A wise person told me years ago that if you're setting up a business for any reason other than to make a profit, your business is doomed to failure.........

    I think you're missing the point. People are talking about setting up a mutually beneficial community.... The internet used to be full of them, there used to be some around here. Communities / social organisations do not exist for profit, they exist for the benefit of the individuals/community involved.
    It's possible that Boards and it's sister sibling companies, that it presents not to be related to, also lost that point along the way, and ended up hooring themselves out to advertisers and "talk to" companies, in order to generate business revenue, ultimately at the expense of the visitors generating the revenue in the first place.


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  • #132
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I'm a member of a few websites which have forums for trading items within their community.

    None of them are big, but they are happy to be a small community.


  • #133
    IRLConor
    Subscribers Posts: 4,076 ✭✭✭IRLConor


    I used to work for Boards.ie and poked a bit at the old Adverts.ie so my initial reaction (like several former employees who've already posted) is "these people have no idea what they're getting into".

    Having said that, I don't see any harm in ye trying. The absolute worst that can happen is that you have fun, fail and lose some money. So long as nobody is delusional about the money side of things and doesn't spend more than they can afford to lose then there'll be no real tears.

    A few tips:
    • Don't expect to cover your costs with display advertising.
    • For the love of $deity be careful with user credentials.
    • Classified ads sites are basically photo sharing sites. Where you store your images matters. Make good choices up front. Re-organising several GB of photos without downtime can be tricky.
    • Search is a lot harder than it looks.
    • Build some good mod tools or the trolls will break the spirit of your mods.
    • Community sites can grow very fast. If you're successful your resource costs will explode so you need to have a plan for how you'll pay for it. Again, don't count on display advertising.
    • Be sure to set aside some time for helping the Gardai catch people fencing stolen goods.

    Good luck!


  • #134
    IRLConor
    Subscribers Posts: 4,076 ✭✭✭IRLConor


    irishgrover wrote: »
    I think you're missing the point. People are talking about setting up a mutually beneficial community.... The internet used to be full of them, there used to be some around here. Communities / social organisations do not exist for profit, they exist for the benefit of the individuals/community involved.
    It's possible that Boards and it's sister sibling companies, that it presents not to be related to, also lost that point along the way, and ended up hooring themselves out to advertisers and "talk to" companies, in order to generate business revenue, ultimately at the expense of the visitors generating the revenue in the first place.

    When you grow big, you need more hardware. When you have more hardware, you need more sysadmins. When you have more sysadmins you need money to pay them with.

    Boards worked for years on a combination of ads, charity and the piggy banks of the founders. Those revenue sources don't scale up as fast as a user base does. Eventually you have to focus on revenue or cap the size of the community.


  • #135
    MyPeopleDrankTheSoup
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,741 ✭✭✭MyPeopleDrankTheSoup


    i'm going to bump this thread in about a month when nothing has been done and everybody's forgotten about it.


  • #136
    Celeron Media
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭Celeron Media


    beauf wrote: »
    Thats a bit like confusing Dido with Slayer.

    It's more like Metallica and MagaDeth.


  • #137
    irishgrover
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,496 ✭✭✭irishgrover


    IRLConor wrote: »
    When you grow big, you need more hardware. When you have more hardware, you need more sysadmins. When you have more sysadmins you need money to pay them with.

    Boards worked for years on a combination of ads, charity and the piggy banks of the founders. Those revenue sources don't scale up as fast as a user base does. Eventually you have to focus on revenue or cap the size of the community.
    fully agree, but your response has little or nothing to do with my point.


  • #138
    irishgrover
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,496 ✭✭✭irishgrover


    georgiecasey wrote: »
    i'm going to bump this thread in about a month when nothing has been done and everybody's forgotten about it.
    .......the smug joys of being a hurler on the ditch


  • #139
    Steve
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,584 ✭✭✭✭Steve


    I wish you every success with this lads, a totally free community site would be a great thing :)

    Tip #1 - Listen to what Conor said above.
    Tip #2 - Find a good solicitor who will work for free - failing that, budget around 50k/year to defend all kinds of muppets suing you (provided you stay small) and to advise you on how to deal with section 8 requests etc..
    Tip #3 - do NOT use photopost or vB to run it :D


  • #140
    IRLConor
    Subscribers Posts: 4,076 ✭✭✭IRLConor


    irishgrover wrote: »
    fully agree, but your response has little or nothing to do with my point.

    You were talking about a "mutually beneficial community". That's not free and only gets more expensive as it grows. You can't separate the notion of a community and the cost of running it. Talk about turning a profit is moot, considering how hard it is to break even, never mind have a surplus to re-invest.


  • #141
    eqwjewoiujqorj
    Registered Users Posts: 506 ✭✭✭eqwjewoiujqorj


    If a new site is going to be set up, it needs to be done very quickly, while there is interest.

    Building a bespoke site would take months.

    Setting up a PHPBB / VBulletin forum would do, for the time being, and would take about 48 hours to set up.

    After x months, it could be migrated over to a new platform.

    As others have said the most important thing is building the userbase.



    Perhaps everyone could answer how many items they have to sell and would be willing to list:

    I'll start:

    I have approx 50 items to sell and I'd be willing to list them at good prices to get the site up and running.


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  • #142
    MyPeopleDrankTheSoup
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,741 ✭✭✭MyPeopleDrankTheSoup


    irishgrover wrote: »
    .......the smug joys of being a hurler on the ditch

    prove me wrong then. good luck with it


  • #143
    seamus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    irishgrover wrote: »
    fully agree, but your response has little or nothing to do with my point.
    It directly discusses your point. A mutually beneficial community is a nice idea, but it doesn't scale in the real world. As community size and popularity increases, the underlying infrastructural and support costs increase as a single block of expense, rather than as something the community can each individually contribute to at zero cost.
    Eventually that block of expense increases beyond the goodwill capabilities of any one person (or small group of people), and you need to find sustainable ways of covering those expenses.


  • #144
    Sparks
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Lads, you do realise that this is the Development forum and not the WhingingBecauseSomePrivateCompanyIsPayingTheirBillsInAWayYouDontPersonallyLike forum, right?


This discussion has been closed.
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