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Author Topic: Kevin Raber?  (Read 10094 times)

Krug

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #60 on: January 10, 2019, 10:12:32 am »

I know that one does have to accept that some people - even among our friends - just like being 'antsy' and 'difficult' just for the sake of it and to gain attention by being immaturely provocative. However, as I have asked before in this discussion, can we not just park our egos for a bit and see how things develop and post only supportive and constructive (even if sensible critical) comments ? If we were to do that I can see nothing but benefit for all of us who value this site and want its' legacy to continue and prosper. If on the other hand you do not care about the site I suggest, politely and respectfully, that it might be better to spend time and effort elsewhere.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2019, 10:26:00 am by Krug »
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John Ashbourne
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Peter_DL

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #61 on: January 10, 2019, 11:03:28 am »

... The stats, though, paint a clear enough picture.
In light of recent events, I suspect that the economics of the subscription side are equally paltry,
Don’t need no PhD to work out what happens next ... but I guess Josh knew that when he wrote ...

Maybe it is just an interim stage and the next step will be a sell-off of the LuLa website & forum,
similar to the Rob Galbraith forum some years ago.

Just a guess, however, I found it worthwhile to download and save a couple of selected LuLa articles and forum discussions from the past decade.

--
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #62 on: January 10, 2019, 11:15:35 am »

... see how things develop and post only supportive and constructive (even if sensible critical) comments ? If we were to do that I can see nothing but benefit for all of us who value this site country and want its' legacy to continue and prosper. If on the other hand you do not care about the site country I suggest, politely and respectfully, that it might be better to spend time and effort elsewhere.

The 45th would have appreciated that too, alas...

Slobodan
Your immaturely provocative forum member

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #63 on: January 10, 2019, 12:58:56 pm »

The 45th would have appreciated that too, alas...

Slobodan
Your immaturely provocative forum member
Good thing that Jeremy won't understand this cryptic post! 8)
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #64 on: January 10, 2019, 01:07:57 pm »


How can a website, that costs money to run, manage to make that happen consistently enough? Maybe it can't, because none of the things on offer are as prosaically important as going down to the supermarket to buy some potatoes when you have none left.
Rob,

The cost of running a website can be negligible depending on what software is needed.  Hosting services are inexpensive.  Sites can be monetized in several ways:  1) advertising (very common across almost all sites unless it is a personal one), 2) membership fee (LuLa was free for a long time and now charges $12/year; lots of places charge more than this), or 3) owners of the website provide products.  Back in the day when Michael was running LuLa there were a number of fine video products that were all available for a reasonable cost.  They were well produced and had excellent content.  I assume that these sales were significant judging by comments from forum participants over the years.  Numbers 2 and 3 are under the control of the site owner as prices are set and product development decided upon.  Advertising revenue is more problematic in that there is considerable competition out there and advertisers know through the click through whether a particular site is driving traffic.  B&H Camera, perhaps the leading e-retailer in the US, used to advertise on LuLa but I no longer see their ads.  I know they advertise on Thom Hogan's site and he always encourages readers to use the click link for purchases.

It's also my understanding that LuLa was in OK financial shape prior to the transition in December.
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faberryman

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #65 on: January 10, 2019, 01:32:34 pm »

The cost of running a website can be negligible depending on what software is needed.  Hosting services are inexpensive.
I ran a high end audio website for seven years. At the end, I was getting a million visits a year. My web hosting with a fast virtual server was $30/month. It costs nothing to run a website - until you start paying yourself. Josh and Irene probably have an idea how much they want to make off LuLa, which is why they took it over from Kevin and Chris.
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Rob C

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #66 on: January 10, 2019, 02:02:26 pm »

I ran a high end audio website for seven years. At the end, I was getting a million visits a year. My web hosting with a fast virtual server was $30/month. It costs nothing to run a website - until you start paying yourself. Josh and Irene probably have an idea how much they want to make off LuLa, which is why they took it over from Kevin and Chris.


That's the principle I was about to state to Alan G.

Michael may have been doing it for kicks - he seemed able to afford a nice country summer retreat with a boat - but if you need to pay people to shoot videos, edit them etc., then unless you have stumbled onto a tribe of wealthy people who want to do that all day long without collecting a living wage from it, you have got to make the site make money.

Advertising deserted the printed page with speed, and went electronic. I heard recently that it doesn't actually have a better chance of prompting sales at all; your ability to judge value for advertising buck spent still remains an elusive daydream, too.

Today, the biggest car maker in the UK has said it's firing 4,500 people on top of a recent 1,500 others who met the same fate (the Jaguar group of companies). They cite marketing difficulties in China and the demonizing of diesel. Over in the States, Ford appears to be ending all its car production and concentrating on SUV and truck buyers, with the exception of Mustang. In Europe, Ford is making a massive restructuring closing production entirely in some countries.

This is change on a seismic level, folks, and I suspect we have only the tiniest idea of where it's going to lead and leave us.

LesPalenik

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #67 on: January 10, 2019, 02:11:14 pm »


Today, the biggest car maker in the UK has said it's firing 4,500 people on top of a recent 1,500 others who met the same fate (the Jaguar group of companies). They cite marketing difficulties in China and the demonizing of diesel. Over in the States, Ford appears to be ending all its car production and concentrating on SUV and truck buyers, with the exception of Mustang. In Europe, Ford is making a massive restructuring closing production entirely in some countries.

This is change on a seismic level, folks, and I suspect we have only the tiniest idea of where it's going to lead and leave us.

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a new 5 billion, 250,000 cars a year factory in China. Some call it realignment.

https://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/elon-musk-breaks-ground-on-5bn-tesla-factory-in-china-1.810212
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Rob C

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #68 on: January 10, 2019, 02:28:23 pm »

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a new 5 billion, 250,000 cars a year factory in China. Some call it realignment.

https://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/elon-musk-breaks-ground-on-5bn-tesla-factory-in-china-1.810212


Does Mr Big know? That could have financed a wall and kept a government working!

:-)


P.S.

This is a joke, not a political stance.

LesPalenik

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #69 on: January 10, 2019, 02:53:43 pm »

Rob, the whole thing is a joke.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #70 on: January 10, 2019, 03:18:13 pm »


That's the principle I was about to state to Alan G.

Michael may have been doing it for kicks - he seemed able to afford a nice country summer retreat with a boat - but if you need to pay people to shoot videos, edit them etc., then unless you have stumbled onto a tribe of wealthy people who want to do that all day long without collecting a living wage from it, you have got to make the site make money.
IIRC, Michael had a gallery in Toronto for a number of years while also running LuLa.  As I noted before, LuLa had a number of offerings that users paid for which I'm sure generated a nice revenue stream. 

Quote
Advertising deserted the printed page with speed, and went electronic. I heard recently that it doesn't actually have a better chance of prompting sales at all; your ability to judge value for advertising buck spent still remains an elusive daydream, too.

I don't think anyone can count on advertising revenues being constant.  It's very easy for advertisers to move in and out of various Internet sites with speed.

Obviously at one level we can calculate part of LuLa's revenues.  $12/year x number of members and subtract out the 3% processing fees charged by the credit card companies.  The forum members link shows 56810 members but we don't know what % of those pay a subscription fee.  Let's say 10% pay (and only a small fraction of that number are really active participants who post on the forums), that gives us approximately 5500 members.  This would provide an annual revenue of $64,020.  Subtract out the basic expenses for web hosting, software, and maintenance would leave a very modest amount of money for a one person run operation.  Clearly revenue has to come from other sources if this is to be more than just a 'for fun' operation.
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Krug

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #71 on: January 10, 2019, 04:16:16 pm »

Slobodan, I really like the sense of humour in your new signature byline as I do much of your photography and, like you, would be very uncomfortable - to say the very least - if everybody, or even most people, thought the same.  But..........
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John Ashbourne
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #72 on: January 10, 2019, 04:36:45 pm »

"There's something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

And with Alan's post, remarkable even by the standards of this thread for its speculative fatuity, we reach the end.

Jeremy
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