fxdwg
Long Time Member
UPSsocks knows that he can still post here, I pm'd with him about it before he announced he was leaving. I actually encouraged him to continue to post under one condition: he needed to be more respectful toward other members. He felt that I had slighted him and decided to leave. I didn't ban him or tell him to leave...
We've had ads running here for years, if we didn't run ads I couldn't afford to keep this site online.
What does it cost to keep this site online?
Browncafe is currently hosted on a SuperVPS 125
Last year we purchased vbulletin suite software.
There are also monthly amazons3/google appengine account fees from my home made content delivery network which I set up to speed up your pageloads.
We also pay a couple of additional yearly software licensing fees and graphics licenses.
I do not get paid for the hundreds of hours it takes me to maintain the site or figure any of this stuff out.
In addition to these costs I bought a couple of chat programs last year when our inexpensive one got all wonky. The first chat room I bought was technically advanced but I got lots of complaints about it, so I bought the one that we're using now. It's very basic and cost less than half of the previous one. I guess I'll chalk up the unused chat room expense to my trying too hard to try out the latest stuff.
To those of you that think I'm raking in the $: If you want to make money on the internet a forum is not the way to do it. I'm always happy when a forum makes a little more than I am spending to keep it online...
I started this site over 10 years ago. There have been many more months that we haven't made enough ad revenue to cover our expenses than months were we break even or make any profit. Many years ago we even had individuals send unsolicited donations to sponsor this site. It apears that times have changed...
The recent ad changes were made because our ad revenue had been very low this year and was drifting even lower. Google adsense analyzed our site and recommended the type and placement of the ads we have now to try and bring the revenue back up. They actually recommended 3 ads per page but I thought that was too much, so I only used 2.
To recap: According to google's analysis you should be seeing 3 ads per page instead of 2.
You're welcome.
Finally, something we agree on.
Cheryl,
I apologize. Rereading the "Walking Gods" part was too direct and was uncalled for. I let my emotions speak for me.
I appreciate your time and effort.
I agree. This site has several behind the scenes people and maybe only 1 or 2.
Thanks.
I was misinformed of the conditions surrounding UPSSOCKS.
Note to self: Trust, but verify....