Is TAZ profitable?

[Paul]

Maybe whoever posted a similar thread on TAZ will see this one and get a more honest answer.

 

Is TAZ profitable?

 

With all of the advertising, premium memberships, sponsoring and the stuff Howard gets for free, he has to be earning some cash from TAZ. What do you think?

[SneakyDave]

Google Adwords doesn't report as many daily pageviews for TAZ as one would think. I think it was something like 5k or 6k a day maybe. As a result, it's dirt cheap to advertise on there with CPM ads.

 

With the popularity of ad blockers, stackexchange and it's new 'community building' area, TAZ's fortunes will continue to dwindle.

 

It seems most new members on TAZ are people trying to plug their brand new site, and it isn't attracting more seasoned forum administrators. Howie would tell us that all the veterans are already registered, lol

 

Between the footer ads and the premium memberships that he seems to give away more than earn, and the fact that he has to hire out help for practically everything, he may be breaking even on his hobby.

 

I suspect he'd like to sell the site, but probably missed out on the most lucrative time to get rid of it. I'm at a loss to even guess at what it's worth.

 

80% of the posts on TAZ are no longer timely with the respect to forum management, by my estimate. It does well in Google results, but it doesn't look like those results are generating many new registrations or fresh content.

 

Those are just my guesses and theories.

[Sheldon]

Quote from Howie....

 

TAZ generates enough revenues to pay all of its bills, which are considerable. Any surplus funds are reinvested into TAZ. There are no "profits" left over for anyone to take.

 

Huge question here.... "reinvested" in what? That's amusing.

 

Either way, the site has been in a decline, so the money certainly isn't the same. It's turned into a pretty pointless forum. Not much admin to it, considering the topics that need to be heard, Daniel Hood, get locked...... and the ones needing locked, What farts are you currently smelling, remain opened.

[Paul]

Howard's bills are "considerable". Is TAZ on a dedicated server? Does Howard pay the other admin's anything?

[SneakyDave]

"Re-invested", used to pay for that vbResults app.

 

It's interesting, seems like with the decline in the last 3 years or so or more, it seems that there are the same number of staff Howie has always used. They must get pretty bored over there with less moderating to do.

[13511]

Howard's bills are "considerable". Is TAZ on a dedicated server? Does Howard pay the other admin's anything?

Pretty sure they are... and then you have Matt W. that is either getting paid his normal amount, or doing it at a discounted rate with free advertising for his service.

[Ziggy]

"Re-invested", used to pay for that vbResults app.

 

I dunno about that. IMO Howard probably got the app at a discount, so vbresults could showcase his app on there.

[SneakyDave]

Yeah, I understand that, there's probably a lot of handshakes going back and forth with the vbresults app. That seems to be evident because the thread promoting the app was meant to be a Q&A thread about it for only 30 days.

[SneakyDave]

I hope Howie was MattW on a retainer fee because that can be a lot of fire fighting with Howie at the wheel.

[Ziggy]

Very possible, but it's pure speculation on my part as I have nothing to do with it. Edited May 13, 2016 by Ziggy

[13511]

That's one reason I like running my own servers... I'm more into the administration aspect of the forums (server and the script) than generating content. I do mine more for my enjoyment than worrying about them becoming "popular".

[Paul]

Don't get me wrong - I believe that TAZ could be profitable if I was a full time webmaster and motivated to generate income. To me though' date=' it's just a hobby[/b'] really and I haven't had the time or inclination to really try to increase revenues beyond the break even point.

 

Is following people around and banning them over things they said on other forums part of Howard's hobby?

[Sheldon]

Yes.

[SneakyDave]

if I was a full time webmaster and motivated to generate income.

 

The dude has plus or minus 14 ad slots on each page. :laughing:

[Paul]

The dude has plus or minus 14 ad slots on each page. :laughing:

I wish someone with some balls would call him out on that.

[Cloaked]

Is TAZ profitable?

 

I doubt it is any longer. At one point it was. Now the only thing keeping it alive is staff and advertisers see this and stay away. Sure the new admins that know no better will spend the money on a footer ad. Since no one really buys them on a site that is as in it's death bed those ads might actually benifit the person that bought them. I don't think Howie removes them when they expire to let the footer go barren.

 

I can almost bet MattW gets zero, zilch, nada. Howard bets that the prestige of being TAZ server admin is all it takes and no money needs to be paid.

 

You can be sure Howie paid a decent amount to vbresults. Howie likes to make it seem like TAZ is in the forefront when in reality it has been lagging behind for a considerable amount of time now. TAZ is irrelevant now and has been for a at least the last 3 years. The move to xenforo was a last ditch effort to revitalize the site as was the import of AdEx. If Howie hadn't kissed Lisa's ass and begged her to let him have AdEX TAZ very well could be completely dead today.

[Guest why you mad?]

u need $? u worry $? sad boy y u worry $?