Is this a decent concept for Links.com

[richrf]

Hi everyone,

It is very difficult finding a unique concept that fits Links.com. I am experimenting with this new one. Basically, I am using Wordpress as a polling site where visitors can vote on the best links within different categories. I just put the site up to see if the concept might fly before I put any more effort and investment into it.

Another idea that was suggested to me was an AllTop clone, but I cannot see the user value with PopURL and AllTop already out there.

Any feedback on the concept would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Rich

 

[kiore]

Looks interesting. You could keep that idea for www.Links.com and use the subdomain my.links.com to let your members save their own personal bookmarks --- then feed the most common bookmarks back into the top bookmarks list on www. From there you could suggest related bookmarks to the my.links.com users to get stickability.

Wrap it all in a little adsense & it could be a good little earner.

 

[snoop]

There is almost no money in this kind of thing.

 

[richrf]

Looks interesting. You could keep that idea for www.Links.com and use the subdomain my.links.com to let your members save their own personal bookmarks --- then feed the most common bookmarks back into the top bookmarks list on www. From there you could suggest related bookmarks to the my.links.com users to get stickability.

Wrap it all in a little adsense & it could be a good little earner.

Thanks for the response kiore. I tried the idea out over the weekend. I have enough traffic and comparative history to make a judgment on the potential. There was pretty reasonable interactivity but the time spent on the site was very minimal and very little stickiness, so I decided to drop the idea for now. I'll keep trying to come up with an idea that has real sticky content.

Thanks again for your response.

Rich

---------- Post added at 07:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:48 AM ----------

There is almost no money in this kind of thing.

Hi snoop,

Yes, I agree. I was hoping to improve traffic and stickiness, even if there was not much revenue, but as it turns out I get neither, so I dropped the idea.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Rich

 

[maxeaus]

For me the obvious thing to do is about golf links courses, you would be best served spending some money getting a quality site up and running and listing every links course, with ads on each page, holiday packages etc etc. A site like this will appeal to many rich people who love to travel and play golf.

This is a no brainer IMO.

 

[DotUSDomains]

Links.com should have been a golf course directory many many months ago.

Only webmasters intrested in buying links

No chance to compete with the big boys on social bookmarking sites.
Go for the golf idea and you wont regret it.

 

[Jose Canucee]

Maybe Sausage Links?

No... Really now... Go with Golf... Get John Daly as a spokesman, and go for it!

 

[richrf]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the suggestions.

The first site I built on Links was a golf directory. However, it went no where. The problem is content. There are some really terrific golf sites out there that have very comprehensive information about golf links and all other aspects of golf. There is no reason for anyone to come to a golf directory on my site unless I can compete with content. For the same reason I cannot compete with sites like Digg simply by putting a Pligg script on my site. Content is king.

Thanks much for your replies.

Rich

 

[maxeaus]

I understand your catch 22 situation, but you simply cannot do justice to a super premium high $ domain on a wordpress blog.

You have to spend some dollars on a quality site, it has to be done, you have to take a long term view, 10, 20 even 50 years. This domain needs to be about links sites only, forget every golf course in the world. Check out wikipedia, they have a list i see.

Now you need to be creative and original about your golf links site, that's the challenge IMO.

Maybe a links forum? Videos of courses? Special holiday packages? These are just off the top of my head mind you, you really need to get a list of ideas. Maybe get a business partner who is a website developer, and or golfer? Both would be even better!

I know a NP member recently started a site around oilprice.com, and it's a quality site, ask him how much time and money he has invested to see if it's worth it or not for you.

I think you need to spend money to make money on this one.
Or just park it with golf links and wait for a buyer with a high offer, there are many rich golfers!

Hope this helps, good luck whatever you do.

 

[richrf]

I think you need to spend money to make money on this one.
Or just park it with golf links and wait for a buyer with a high offer, there are many rich golfers!

Hope this helps, good luck whatever you do.

Hi there,

I agree, but my motto has always been "it is much easier to spend money than to make money". I would like to be pretty sold on an idea before I invest a substantial money in it. There are so many great golf sites out there. I would have to be convinced that I have a real edge somewhere before investing anything in a site with a golf motif.

Appreciate your comments and I will keep them in mind.

Rich

 

[mwzd]

The whole internet is connected by links.

The question you're obviously facing is "how do I earn major revenues from it w/o spending a lot on getting those revenues?" Simple answer - sell it to the highest bidder.

Tougher choice - build it yourself into something thats globally relevant. You'd have a winner on your hands plus you'll save a mint on the advertising because of its brand equity, specially if you can get the whole viral bit going.

Don't leave it too late though, with the scenario changing as fast as it is, you don't want to have to wait for an indeterminate period to drawing the maximum ROI from it.

You have professionals who can provide the parts, but you'll still need to do the business bit of it to make any relevant revenues from it. A profit making venture, online and offline needs business planning, finance management, advertising and marketing to make anything of it, aside from the 'big idea'.

A name like the one you have here deserves a proper shot at it, not a stab in the dark w/ half baked ideas or execution.

 

[richrf]

Hi,

Tougher choice - build it yourself into something thats globally relevant.

Yes, this is what I would like to do.

A name like the one you have here deserves a proper shot at it, not a stab in the dark w/ half baked ideas or execution.

Unfortunately, the half baked ideas tend to dominate. Finding the one great idea is the really tough part. Billions of dollars go down the drain every year in ventures that are doomed to failure from the get go. I know. I use to invest in them. So, finding that one really great idea .... that is where I am at. In the meantime, I continue to experiment and learn more about what attracts visitors and keeps them coming back.

Thanks for your comments.

Rich

 

[mwzd]

Yes, half baked ideas do dominate, but you don't need to be involved in one :p

Its a personal choice tbh. I've been doing business online and running web properties since 1998. Have seen the first dotcom boom and bust.

Am standing by for the second bust to really hit now. But its all about the revenues, keep your spend logical to your intake and you don't really have to lose money to ensure 'proof of concept'.

 

[richrf]

Yes, half baked ideas do dominate, but you don't need to be involved in one :p

Its a personal choice tbh. I've been doing business online and running web properties since 1998. Have seen the first dotcom boom and bust.

Am standing by for the second bust to really hit now. But its all about the revenues, keep your spend logical to your intake and you don't really have to lose money to ensure 'proof of concept'.

Yes. I agree. I am patient and will wait for the right idea to materialize. Until then, I am working on a new idea which hopefully will attract a bit more traffic though I am sure that it will not be the final.

Thanks.

Rich

 

[maxeaus]

If you can't or don't want to invest some money in the domain i would then suggest your next best option would be to put it in a major domain auction, like traffic or similar, let some one else "buy the dream", or a site like linkmarket or similar may pay the big bucks.

May as well consider all options IMO

 

[richrf]

If you can't or don't want to invest some money in the domain i would then suggest your next best option would be to put it in a major domain auction, like traffic or similar, let some one else "buy the dream", or a site like linkmarket or similar may pay the big bucks.

May as well consider all options IMO

I'm not sure what I said that conveyed the idea that I cannot or do not wish to invest in the domain. I have actually spent quite a bit of money on different ideas and I continue to spend money. What I don't want to do is waste my money on ideas that clearly, based upon past experiences, will fail.

I have quite a bit of experience with start-ups and start-up investment and I use this experience to help me decide whether an idea is worth investment. If I do not feel that I can go outside to raise money for an idea (I don't need to), I will not spend my own money.

I hope this clarifies my position and thank you for your response.

Rich

 

[maxeaus]

Well i mean, if you "can't" as in spare the time, or "won't" as in spend anymore money (you admit you already have spent money $).

I mean at some point a sale must come into the equation, i don't mean it like your too lazy or too tight! LOL

So this is where you are left IMO, with a valuable domain that you admit yourself has failed to make a reasonable return as a golf site, and certainly IMO is nothing to look at as a wordpress site.

Why not sell it and move on? Many domainers would give their right arm to sell a domain like this given such a "rich $" potential buyer/s.

I think the reality is that this domain is one of those that is more lucrative to sell than to develop, given what we know of the already heavily developed categories, being linking and golf.

This is the conclusion i have gained from this exercise (your post).

 

[richrf]

I think the reality is that this domain is one of those that is more lucrative to sell than to develop, given what we know of the already heavily developed categories, being linking and golf.

This is the conclusion i have gained from this exercise (your post).

Hi,

Your conclusion may very well be correct. I have no way of knowing at this time. My own preference is to develop the domain in order to add and gain more value from it. I have a considerable amount of experience developing startup companies and from my experience it pays to be smart about the venture, have patience (some of the best startups take many years to develop and find the right combination of ideas), and to conserve money for the right idea when it comes along. Wasting money on initial ideas that turned out to be duds is the most frequent reason venture financed companies fail.

Thanks again for your comments.

In the meantime, I actually am gaining some traction with some new ideas I am trying out and I hope to continue to build in an incremental fashion.

Rich

 

[kiore]

Hi Rich,

This domain name has been bugging me because it is too good to leave undeveloped.

There has to be some way to turn it into a money making machine & I hope you find it.

My best idea so far is to go against the no_url_shorteners / no_url_shorteners marketplace, but with a twist. Let people register and categorize their short - links then pull top links from across the board into your categories pages. You can calculate top links on number of hits, number of people shortening the original it or some combination.

This gets you into 3 markets ... the short link market, the portable bookmark market, and the top pages market.

You can monetize through adsense on the generated link page and top links pages and where people create short links with affiliate codes in them, the combined categories can always be that link with your affiliate code in it. ... given that multiple people will have encoded the same base link with different affiliate codes this will be fair enough as long as you only do it to the composite lists and not any individual's.

Play around with this idea a bit ... I'm sure you can move it in a number of different directions from the same basic engine & start generating traffic ... one obvious add-on would be something that periodically auto tweets with today's top 5 links.

 

[richrf]

Hi Rich,

This domain name has been bugging me because it is too good to leave undeveloped.

There has to be some way to turn it into a money making machine & I hope you find it.

My best idea so far is to go against the no_url_shorteners / no_url_shorteners marketplace, but with a twist. Let people register and categorize their short - links then pull top links from across the board into your categories pages. You can calculate top links on number of hits, number of people shortening the original it or some combination.

This gets you into 3 markets ... the short link market, the portable bookmark market, and the top pages market.

You can monetize through adsense on the generated link page and top links pages and where people create short links with affiliate codes in them, the combined categories can always be that link with your affiliate code in it. ... given that multiple people will have encoded the same base link with different affiliate codes this will be fair enough as long as you only do it to the composite lists and not any individual's.

Play around with this idea a bit ... I'm sure you can move it in a number of different directions from the same basic engine & start generating traffic ... one obvious add-on would be something that periodically auto tweets with today's top 5 links.

Hi kiore,

Thanks for your suggestions. I have given lots of thought to top sites and social bookmarking services. I actually began development of such a site only to find that diigo.com did it and much better than I could do it. The idea was good but it is difficult to compete against very capable and well funded technologists.

The other issues I face is that the vast majority visitors do not participate in any type of new social site (they already have all they need) and those who do are for the most part spam. So I need lots of traffic to get good and valuable information on the site.

I am glad that we are thinking along the same lines and hopefully I am able to build along these ideas. Thanks for your suggestions.

Rich