Sep 17, 2007
by Skellie
If you’re not in the market for a new project, you can skip this one. If you are, consider these three ideas. Not sure if they’ll be useful to you, but I had to get them out.
- 1. Start up a blog or website dedicated to StumbleUpon. It could include profiles of great stumblers, tips, hacks and how-to guides, and updates about the pages causing a buzz at the moment. Pros: established and passionate reader base, very high likelihood of your articles getting plenty of stumbles. Cons: difficult to monetize. (Note: there are probably sites attempting this but a cursory searched revealed none. I’d also think that if it were doing it well we’d all know about it. Most of you could really pull this off, I think.)
- 2. Start a blog about Notebooks (the old-school kind). Creative/organized types who use notebooks are fanatical about them. You could include reader-submitted scans, hacks, trivia about how famous people in the past have used their notebooks, info on stationary, etc. Pros: easy to monetize (aff links to notebooks and stationary), would be quite fun if you’re a notebook aficionado yourself. Cons: you’d have to be a naturally inventive person to keep the content up to standard.
- 3. A swap site, based on Bookmooch.com. It would have to use a different algorithm to be original, but the basic premise is: you give away a book you don’t want to someone who wants it and get a point. You use that point to get a book you do want from someone who doesn’t want it — they get a point. Work out a different value system and repeat the process for: comic books, or trading cards, or CDs, or DVDs, or any relatively cheap collectible item. I like the comic book idea best. Pros: potential for virality, powerful monetization options (look at Bookmooch for inspiration there). Cons: technically difficult to execute.
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12 Comments, Comment or Ping
Brian Auer
The StumbleUpon thing is a great idea — I’m sure it would receive lots of traffic from the mother ship. I wish I had more time on my hands.
Sep 17th, 2007
skellie
You know you want to, Brian
Sep 18th, 2007
Tad Chef
Skellie, check out: http://www.howtostumble.com/
Sep 19th, 2007
Ankesh Kothari
Thanks Skellie for sharing ideas.
1. SU is growing big very quickly. And I’ve already created a site to monetize from SU. But I’m not sure if its a good idea to create a blog discussing SU - outside of SU (you can blog on SU as well).
You would get traffic. But is there a potential to create a big backend product that stumblers would buy? I don’t see one yet. Something may pop up though as more time goes on. I usually don’t like markets where revenue is based on ads alone.
Its not a bad idea though. Its quite good in fact.
2. The notebook market is too narrow and the income potential too low. I’ll be very surprised to see some one make a full time income from a blog on notebooks.
Simple market formula:
# of buyers/readers * Value per buyer/reader = Potential.
The market size for notebooks is not too big (as far as I know). And you wouldn’t earn a lot via affiliate commission per buyer either. So the overall potential is low.
A better idea is a blog for office furniture and stationary (furniture is big business). Or on ergonomics.
(BTW, if anyone is interested to write on these blog topics, I’m willing to setup and run everything.)
Tip to find out if the market is there: is there a magazine published on that topic? (Watch out for trade magazines. Not consumer magazines.)
3. Swapping is a very cool idea. I’d pitched the idea to a big Indian portal some time back. Nothings come of it yet. I just don’t have the resources to take on one more big project on my own without hiring additional staff. But something like this could work really really well.
Your 3rd idea is the best idea by far. Because it’ll be very very easy to make it popular, earn money from it - and then sell it off.
–
Thanks for sharing your ideas Skellie. Maybe I should give away some of my ideas that I’m never going to develop on my blog… I have 3 long notebooks filled with ideas!
Sep 21st, 2007
skellie
Hi Ankesh, thanks for your responses. If you look at the ideas in light of making a full-time income then each of them are going to be difficult — it’s hard to make a full-time income from anything. But in terms of a fun project I think any of them could be interesting. I guess before anyone decides to run with one of these ideas it would be important to work out what your goals are.
I don’t think you could make a full-time income off a blog for office furniture or stationary. Perhaps if it were part of a vast network of blogs, but how many people want to read about that topic? I’d say it’s too small a niche to be enough on its own, though it would probably work well in tandem with others.
In other words, these ideas are really only meant to be fun possibilities.
As for releasing your own ideas, Ankesh, I think that’d be great. Perhaps you could make a weekly post out of it?
Sep 21st, 2007
engtech
I’ve recently noticed http://stumblegods.com
Sep 23rd, 2007
engtech
for the swap site, torrentswapper would work where you exchange illegal files.
edit: looks like it kindof exists, actually
http://www.zeropaid.com/torrentswapper/
Sep 23rd, 2007
skellie
Just looking through StumbleGods… it’s kinda what I was hoping for, though I still think someone could step in and do it better.
And yes, swapping illegal files could be another option, if you were so inclined! Not that I condone that sort of thing… Skelliewag fully endorses the anti-piracy authorities ;).
Sep 23rd, 2007
Shea Gunther
Hey, this is Shea, one of the Stumble Gods…
We can’t wait until someone steps in and does what we’re doing better, then we can stop working and just link to them.
We’ll let you know how it goes when we start to monetize. We’re figuring we’ll be able to retire soon off of the Cafepress shirts alone.
Rock on,
Shea
Sep 27th, 2007
kristarella
Cool ideas. I love the notebook idea. I would love to do it (I was reading the comments to see if anyone had put their name up for it already!). I don’t necessarily have time to devote now (getting it started that is), but uni holidays are coming up! I could investigate the concept in the mean time.
I think one would need an extended plan for that sort of thing so that it didn’t just fizzle out and run out of notebooks to post!
Oct 8th, 2007
kristarella
Looks like Moleskinerie might be similar to what you’re talking about (although I think something slightly more exciting could be done :P).
Oct 8th, 2007
Taurnroyamn
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Nov 30th, 2007
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