[snowgoose]

If you havent heard already, well, im in the process of starting up a social network portal. Giving social networks the chance to advertise with us and be reviewed, along with a general summary and various ratings.

Im just posting this, wondering how many potential social network owners would be willing to advertise on here?

If you would be willing to advertise, what would you say is a fair monthly price for advertising. ( the site will consist of one full web page per network )

Thanks

Jake

[ADVERTISE HERE!]

Personally, I would not advertise a social network on a startup website. You would need to generate the traffic first.

[snowgoose]

So you wouldnt even advertise for free just adding a little link to our site from yours.

[akula]

snowgoose, do u have a supervisor who gives you feedback about opportunity selection?

[Xanifur]

Originally Posted by jmenq2

Personally, I would not advertise a social network on a startup website. You would need to generate the traffic first.

Agreed. You need to get members, dedicated members who will tell their friends.

[snowgoose]

Err no Akula. why do you ask?

[akula]

well...i tell ya..mentors are important. they help you think through and analyse opportunities, so you don't end up getting your self into a dud. so for most boards that i'm familiar with, the entrepreneur spends more than 12 months researching, thinking about and qualifying the opportunity - before they either proceed to commercializing it or dropping the thing...

what steps have you followed to qualify this opportunity?

[DuValEnterprises]

as many have told you already, I don't think any social network will pay you to put up a page about them. There are services like this already that host free social network directories. These pages (as far as I've seen) aren't really much more than a bunch of adsense ads strewn together, but you can find directories of social networks that exist.

I've told you before, I wouldn't pay to have my site profiled on your page. It may be because my site is more niched than most "general" social networks, ones that might need a site like yours to help differentiate themselves to users....

Honestly, I just worry that you'll spend a bunch of time and money getting this ready, and then right after you launch, someone else launches a similar site that does everything for free. Who will prevail in that situation? Probably not you. The site you describe would not be very hard to create and offer for free.

Look at my site man! I will be spending a lot of money offering a free service to people, that's how I expect to grow my site!

Basically:
If you charge sites to do this, you will never see my site on your page.
If you offered to promote my site for free, I would sign up this instant.

I think that by offering this service for free you could attract a lot more social networks to join, which should in turn boost the amount of visitors you receive, earning you more in advertising profits.

[ltressel]

Got a point there, Duval. Portals shouldn't really charge a thing to the social network sites but your bread and butter should come from advertising revenues.

Snowgoose, have you already created a business model? It's a good way to analyze your business thoroughly. It should be able to help you plan accordingly and identify all your pitfalls. You can solve or find out it isn't viable at all.

It's like creating a storyboard. Before a movie gets into production, they ideas are drawn out before an actual filming takes place. This way, they have not spent all the time and money producing a costly scene and then end up not even needing it and scrapped at the cutting room.

LT