The Question and Answer Board

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

I'm usually pretty secretive about anything remotely resembling our financials, but...

Bottomline is that it does not come down to the clicks.

Amen to that!

Advertising was less than 25% of our revenue last year and I'm expecting it to be substantially less than that this year. It's not that "that's all we were able to make on ads". Our business plan does not call for a strong reliance on advertising. Currently, subscriptions is intended to be (and is fulfilling our expectations) our main revenue stream. I have two other revenue streams slated to roll out in the first half of this year. Big ones. They'll help to reduce the role advertising plays here.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that when anyone says we're trying to let a bunch of dramas play out on the boards so we'll get more traffic and more advertising dollars because of the traffic, they don't know the first thing about internet businesses and what advertising is really worth to a site as a revenue stream.

Money is in subscribers. And they are simply rare among the one-stock BB posters.

Interesting hypothesis. I ran a query a little while ago to satisfy my curiosity on a similar point. Lemme go find it and run it on a few boards.

EDIG: 1.8% of boardmarks are placed by subscribers.
IDCC: 22.8% of boardmarks are placed by subscribers.
Zeev's: 22.9% of boardmarks are placed by subscribers.

I'd say you're probably right.