You know I have been reading and seeing countless people talking about the ads and blah blah blah. Just where does BYOND stand financially speaking? I know most of the time the goal isnt met so between the donations and the ads is BYOND some place near the green or are we talking a total shut down of the service in a few years at its going rate?
I am not whining about the ads personally I don't mind them I just want to know where everything stands seeing as the only response I have seen from anyone is IF THE ADS ARE GONE THE SERVICE DIES!!! OMGZ! ... Well financially speaking that means BYOND is not only in the red but will most likely be going under with or without the ads. However if there is a profit margin of say atleast 1,000 a month that would atleast mean at the moment while its not AS much as TOM may hope to make it is still making enough to support itself outside of making a bit extra on the side.
I understand that you have staff members that want to make a full time job of it and I am for it I don't care how they spend the money if they use it to buy a house then so be it I just wish to know where the whole site stands.
:)
ID:1524635
 Mar 21 2014, 8:07 am
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Mar 21 2014, 8:14 am
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Vrocaan
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See the contribution bar? That's about how much BYOND makes every month, and I'd assume most of it is spent on keeping the site afloat, as well as paying for Tom and Lummy's ramen.
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Vrocaan wrote:
See the contribution bar? That's about how much BYOND makes every month, and I'd assume most of it is spent on keeping the site afloat, as well as paying for Tom and Lummy's ramen. That doesnt include the money made from ads though, I doubt that is on the same scale as the donations however | |
I believe I've seen Tom say that the money made from ads is pretty minuscule.
I found a quote: The ads pay both per view and per click. They don't make a lot at the moment, but the fact that we can recoup _anything_ from our non-member base is a large bonus, and I do believe they provide some benefit as nagware, not that this is ideal. That's from November. I find it doubtful that the situation has changed. | |
That still doesnt really answer the question. If you own a server inside of a server farm you know that the cost of running a server isnt THAT much while it is spendy as long as you don't have like hundreds of servers your overhead shouldnt be that much. It would mostly be bandwidth anyway. So I am guessing that most of the money is going to pay for staffing wages. That being said its safe to say the site is in the green and paying for itself outside of feeding tom and what not. Which is great.
That means while it doesnt leave much for staff the site itself pays for itself if thats the case the only reason the site would run the risk of being shut down would be because they don't wish to keep it going. Not because the cost of running it is greater than the money coming in. Dont read this wrong I am all for support on the staff making money they should get paid for their work. I am just saying if thats the case financially speaking BYOND is fine and can keep on chugging less a more or less profit margin every month depending on donations. What I am getting at is if lets say one month they only make 100 bucks in donations does that mean BYOND is going to shut down because they dont have the means to pay for the housing in the server farm. Or is the server paid for the next few years and everything they are making is profit for them for the work they done. Thats all I am wondering. :) | |
Tom has expressed a desire to, at the very least, preserve BYOND as it is for as long as he can. I don't want to speak for him, but you can probably rest assured that it will stick around for awhile.
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The way I understood it, the advertising revenue is all used to pay for servers, bandwidth, hosting, etc to maintain the current services. The donation money is used to pay for Tom and Lummox's salaries to continue development of the project.
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Then the problem is not with ad revenue, it's with ramen prices. We need to FIGHT THE POWER. Thomas Jefferson once said "If the price for a pack of noodles is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."
Gather with me, my brethren. We shall overcome this diabolical oppression. TOGETHER. | |
LOL! ROFL! Okay that made me laugh. I still would like to know where BYOND itself stands and I am sure the ad revenue while not a lot isnt half bad. I mean even if you avg 1000 people a day. Even if half of them are members thats 500 people and if they connect to more than a single game a day or reconnect or somthing thats two views at two views thats 1000 views.
Now on avg unless you have a horrible service you get about 5 cents per view thats 50 bucks a day thats 350 per week thats 1400 a month but thats with a small viewing base last i looked the web traffic coming to byond was closer to 100,000 a month. At even a penny per view and five cents per click the ads are making a bit of money more so than a pack of ramen. The only way they wouldnt be making any real profit is if they were under contract for the ads and they made a flat rate for so many views per month which I HIGHLY doubt would be the case. Most people change games atleast 5 or so times a day and reconnect just as many times. That being said I think its safe to say they are getting a good amount of views the only REAL blow to the ads would be if it was unique views which is possible but even then people use proxys to avoid bans so still getting a bit more than your avg. Point im making here is while I am for ads and donations and them getting paid from a financial stand point is BYOND in the green and they are banking money and hitting the goal they need and are just not hitting the goal they want or what. :P Only real person that could answer this is prob tom so :P I guess the question is pointless without some real peaking under the bed if you will. :) | |
If you get paid on impressions, it's calculated per 1000 impressions, with $1 per 1000 impressions being pretty good and for sites of more traffic than BYOND.
So by impressions, at best, if BYOND had such a deal, they'd pull in of the order $40 a month off impressions, as not all impressions are valid advert impressions on BYOND's site. About 40% of them are. CPC schemes do BYOND a bit better, despite the surprisingly good captive aspect of the content on here. Most sites can expect CTRs of about 1% tops. BYOND sees about half of that (bit less, actually). You do the math and BYOND's CPC payout doesn't break $1000 a month, from the site. Interstitial ads in the pager and before non-members join games are another matter, but I'm going to wager that they are not a massive cash-cow either. | |
Stephen001 wrote:
If you get paid on impressions, it's calculated per 1000 impressions, with $1 per 1000 impressions being pretty good and for sites of more traffic than BYOND. When I did google ads of a site with about only 100 unique users I made $300 in one week before i realized it needed tax info and crap and also that i was too young at the time to receive the money(you had to be 18 or whatever) lol. | |
Stephen001 wrote:
So by impressions, at best, if BYOND had such a deal, they'd pull in of the order $40 a month off impressions, as not all impressions are valid advert impressions on BYOND's site. About 40% of them are. http://www.byond.com/members/ Tom?command=view_post&post=1279520&page=2#comment4673551 Tom gives some data here, and back in 2013, it did seem to breaking the $1k mark. Not too sure where the traffic stands at the moment, compared to back then. | |
The web ads make very little atm (rates and traffic have both dropped), but the pager ads do OK and that seems to be improving. Once we have a web client, I am optimistic the ads there will do very well and/or encourage Membership.
This project isn't going to make anyone rich, but I was hoping it would make enough to allow a bit more expansion. Since we aren't even hitting our monthly goals, that's more difficult but, since it is relatively stable, you don't have to worry about us just turning the lights out anytime soon. | |
That suggests your 100 users were punching out an ad per day each or so, which is ordinarily grounds for account suspension.
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Stephen001 wrote:
That suggests your 100 users were punching out an ad per day each or so, which is ordinarily grounds for account suspension. Most likely some guests were clicking as well..idk. And I think it was a month prob can't recall its been so many years and I felt like exxagerating. | |
:P Thanks for the reply tom and as for the other replies its all based on how much the ads pay out and that depends on the contract and whom you sign with that simple. Only reason I sparked this question was because I noticed that most months byond doesnt hit its goal and with that being said I wanted to know what kind of risk byond was in.
However tom cleared it up :P That simple while the goals arent hit enough is being made to maintain the service and the donations are more for expansion which I am really glad to hear :P So with that being said my question was answered. I didnt really need figures I dont care if anyones making money off the service I just care that the service can pay for itself without much trouble. :P | |
Fugsnarf wrote:
I found a quote: Well then we should all click on the ads a lot and get some $ for BYOND lol | |