Posted 7th January 2007 01:57 by Michael Price
What follows is a post originally made in the Cyberscore Forums.
What better place to start than with the year just passed? As you'll be able to see from our donations page, we came close over the whole year to hitting the targets neccessary to ensure Cyberscore can keep running. We have been able to manage the shortfall for now but we won't be able to forever, of which more later. If you have donated and your name is not appearing on the donations list, let me know (include your e-mail address) - I have a record of all donations so I should be able to double check.
Onto the monthly traffic and the good news is that the numbers continue to go up with a 155% increase on 2005's overall figures. I see no reason why we couldn't hit 2 million this year, so please help us to make that a reality!
Now on to the bad news (and I'm afraid there's quite a bit of it) - in order to try and increase the funding coming into Cyberscore without increasing our reliance on donations we will shortly begin running banner ads on the site. These will be one standard 468 x 60 in the top right hand corner (replacing the links currently there) and one skyscraper down the right hand side of some pages, most likely a Google Adwords banner - final decisions on these are being made at present. In order to support this advertising some minor structural changes will need to be made to the site and regretfully this means the skinning facility is being withdrawn and all users will revert back to the standard skin when these banners go live.
These banners will initially be affiliate links to places such as PlayAsia, eBay and Amazon. Where possible I will geolocate the banners so that people in the US will see banners for Amazon.com whereas UK visitors will see .co.uk and likewise for eBay etc. - these banners will generate income if you click on them and then proceed to purcahse products or services from the advertised company. These will be companies I have used myself without problem and can personally recommend, I will not be putting up banners for just anyone.
In time I will begin selling paid placements to interested companies - rates for these are being finalised at present but if anyone knows any companies or people who may be interested in these placements, please ask them to contact me via e-mail - mike@cyberscore.net.
As per our original promise, anyone who has donated above Ł10 to the running of the site will not see these banners, and - if I can make it work - will, as a result, be able to continue using the skins. Again, in line with our original promise, we guarantee no pop-ups or interstitals will appear on the site. If any do while on Cyberscore, they have not been served by us and you should check your computer for third party software delivering these ads in the background.
Additionally, Cyberscore 4 is currently on hold while I focus on more profitable projects such as the redesign of the shops, and a couple of projects not relating to Cyberscore. Should these prove successful then in the future I can hopefully remove the banners again and we can continue having a clean website funded entirely out of our own pockets instead of those of our very generous users.
Although I will be focusing on these projects for most of the week I plan to set aside one day a week to try and do work on Cyberscore - initially this will be preparing the above but I will also work on amendments, fixes etc. and generally try to be a bit more active around here - a promise I'm sure I've made before but as it's a new year I plan to stick to it this time!
I apologise for the downbeat nature of some of this post but with your support over the coming year we can turn it around and secure the long term future of the site. Thank you all for your support, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site this year and for many years to come.
If you have any questions, please add them to this topic and I will answer as soon as I am able.