Moonbeam, PII is just not powerful enough as a processor, need PIII's and current ones are only 450MHz ones which are already straining with two of them only a few days after going live! We have 512Mb RAM and that is also limiting at the moment. Two 9Gb SCSI in a RAID 1 and that is all I can afford at the moment. Your quote is excessive for the kit you are talking about but don't forget that it has to be hosted somewhere with an access to the internet backbone and remember, the bandwidth useage is the real killer.
As you mention in your reply... "Don't know the excact price for the connection! It really boiles down to backbone cababillity and bandwith as you say." That is where the real costs are. Anyone can build the hardware for a reasonable proce but what you are paying for is somewhere to house it with the backbone connection and the subsequent bandwidth costs. Believe me, I have approached many different providers and I am with one of the cheapest that can provide the back up.
As for the banners, I will happily give you 30% commission for every banner you can sell for GBP1 per 600 banner exposures. Hell, let's make it really easy, GBP1 per 800 exposures. Don't forget though that you have to actually 'sell' this advertising space, get the advertiser to give you the banner at the correct dimensions and file size and type, collect the money owed and cover all the associated expenses for your time and effort. Also, you need to ensure that there is a regular supply of these advertisers.
As an ex-salesman mayself I know how 'easy' it is to sell... NOT. Someones interest is one thing, converting it into actual hard cash is something totally different. As for the 10 million pageviews a month, not all of those pages carry a banner advert as they are not required for the admin functions pages for example. At the moment only just over 6 million pages a month carry actual banners on them. Other banners are only paid on a 'click through' basis and I can tell you that they only earn a fraction of what is required to pay for this website.
Please feel free to provide me with the contacts for the companies that you mention when you say... "The marketing companies I know are getting a small percentage of the income, for taking care of all the hard work selling the banners." I would be more than happy to discuss ways of improving the income without making myself liable to the lawyers that would almost certainly follow through with their threats if they thought that there was any financial gain for them because of this sites success.
Unfortuanely it is all a bit 'Catch 22'ish' and unless there is a large investment to provide a stable infrastructure I doubt that things will change too much except that we will continue to raise funds throught the current method of selling banner advert space. Don't forget also, that most pilots make terrible businessmen and I include myself in that category.
As for the other comments about making the site solely accessible to pilots... you are joking surely? You know the old one about "What do pilots use as a contraceptive?"... Their personalities!!! Can you imagine only qualified pilots, airline ones at that, being the sole users of these forums? Yawwwwn! Seriously though, I learnt very early on that this website would never succeed if it became too elitist. I also remeber the days when I was trying to gather information what was involved in the lob and the industry as a whole. It was not very easy getting information of any substance and besides... I can also learn a lot from other people who are not pilots but involved in the 'job'. In any airline the pilots are only a minority of all the jobs and ancilliary professions that it takes to make an airline.
What I try to do is keep it overall aimed at the 'professional' side of aviation. You will often notice that when someone who appears to be a 'spotter' asks a question then the question is moved to the 'Questions' forum where those of us who care to provide the answers can deal with it instead of clogging up the 'Rumours & News' forum for example. Another case is where private pilots start to post messages that are obviously not appropriate for this forum about light aircraft going missing or whatever. There are enough websites out there that deal with recreational flying. Overall there are enough forums to cope with just about any aspect of professional aviation and it is the input from all the different sources that keep this bulletin board as busy as it is.
Yes, there is an element who don't seem to be able to comprehend that their inane one liners or abuse is not welcome but overall if you ignore them and don't fall into the trap of responding then the moderators and my jobs are made that much easier.
Thanks for all the kind comments and suggestions and the criticisms too. Without them I am sure I would get very bored with it. Why else would I spend so much time on this when on a layover in Vegas? The fact that it has been very cold and rainy is only part of the excuse!
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Capt PPRuNe
aka Danny Fyne
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork