Today I'd like to share a fun way to make some spending money by posting to Slashdot. I used this technique successfully over the course of two years. I had a lot of extra time back then, and it's really not worth my time anymore, but maybe someone else will give it a try.
Step 1: Find a good referral program
Back in 2003, I was a happy LunarPages web hosting customer. They provided a pretty good service for the $7.95/mo fee and while I wouldn't recommend them today (because there are far better tech out there), I definitely felt they were a steal back then. Soon after signing up, I found out that they offered an affiliate program that anyone could join. The offer was about $50 per referral. The referral had to stay a customer for a certain amount of time for it to count, but at $50 each, this was huge to me. LunarPages still has a referral program, and I understand that the referral amount is even higher today.
The payoff for a referral with LunarPages is great, and their service is very inexpensive. As an aside, I found it intriguing that LunarPages was willing to pay about half a year's worth of hosting service for a successful referral, showing exactly how important new customers are to their business. I should have added another modifier to the step heading though: Find a good, relevant referral program. Slashdot users are exactly the crowd who will be purchasing their own e-mail and web hosting services. It hit me one day that if I could connect this targeted crowd with the LunarPages product, I could net some good spending money without doing much work.
Step 2: Advertise with impunity
The Slashdot community is very sensitive to advertisement. If a study was ever conducted, I predict the intersection between Slashdot users and Adblock users is much higher than the general web using public. With this in mind, I knew I couldn't just spam in the comments. The solution turned out to be subtle and simple: put the ad in your signature. For those who don't know, a user's signature is a small piece of text that is added to the bottom of every message you post. This concept came from e-mail, but forums picked up the idea and Slashdot kept it alive with their commenting system.
Two things are true when you create a signature. First, no one seems to question the fact that it carries an ad, as long as your post is well received. Relevance helps here, but I found that humor with a dash of relevance was really the easiest way to grab attention. Second, not everyone will see it. This second point means that you will be cutting down on the potential buyers, but because of the way Slashdot works, it also means you're further targeting your message. Slashdot doesn't show signatures if you're logged out, so only people who cared enough to create an account and login will see it.
Step 3: Be visible
I have a theory about Slashdot that is probably not groundbreaking in web company circles: people don't read very far down the screen. The graph of x users that scroll y percent down the page is probably a very nice curve that drops off quickly and then slowly approaches zero. Think 1/x. I observed the value of getting your comment at the top of the list, and the only way to do that is to post quickly.
The other visibility factor on Slashdot is the comment moderation system. Each comment can be moderated by a sampling of other users. As a reader, you can filter out the low rated comments, and by default anything less than 3 points is relegated to a far less visible status. If a comment reaches a net of 5 positive votes, it will be seen by anyone who reads the comments on a particular story. So your goal here is: +5 and first post.
It turns out that it's hard to be the first post. It's somewhat less difficult to score a +5. Good luck for you, the first couple of posts are usually trolls (the first one often exclaiming their success in being first), so as long as you can be the first +5 post, you'll guarantee that anyone who reads the comments will defeinitely see your post, and your ad. I discovered a very simple technique. Slashdot users will rate any relevant Simpsons quote "+5 Funny." The Simpsons have covered every conceivable topic, so it stands to reason that there is a relevant Simpsons quote for any given Slashdot discussion. If I ever go back to school for a Master's degree, I would strongly consider creating software that could cough up a relevant Simpsons quote for any given topic as my thesis. So the technique is to wait for a new Slashdot topic, quickly digest the content, and using my complete knowledge of all of the good Simpsons episodes, post a comment that is mostly based off of a Simpsons quote. I should go back and measure, but almost every post I made was scored +5, and was high enough that my advertisement was seen by tons of users.
The Results
If you have a real job, my results will sound like peanuts. I've since grown up, graduated from school, been married, had two kids, et cetera, so this kind of work is no longer appealing to me, but at the time it was a great way to score some extra dollars without appearing to do anything more than what I was already doing (that is, reading Slashdot and working on my ubernerd street cred.) Caveats out of the way, I managed to be paid just under $600 per year for two years. I only really tried for about half of both of those years too.
The takeaway? Marketing is real. By hacking it myself, I found out how to score a meager return on my time investment. You need to make sure people can see it, and hooking up the right people is even better. And dropping a Simpsons quote never hurt. ;-)
Step 1: Find a good referral program
Back in 2003, I was a happy LunarPages web hosting customer. They provided a pretty good service for the $7.95/mo fee and while I wouldn't recommend them today (because there are far better tech out there), I definitely felt they were a steal back then. Soon after signing up, I found out that they offered an affiliate program that anyone could join. The offer was about $50 per referral. The referral had to stay a customer for a certain amount of time for it to count, but at $50 each, this was huge to me. LunarPages still has a referral program, and I understand that the referral amount is even higher today.
The payoff for a referral with LunarPages is great, and their service is very inexpensive. As an aside, I found it intriguing that LunarPages was willing to pay about half a year's worth of hosting service for a successful referral, showing exactly how important new customers are to their business. I should have added another modifier to the step heading though: Find a good, relevant referral program. Slashdot users are exactly the crowd who will be purchasing their own e-mail and web hosting services. It hit me one day that if I could connect this targeted crowd with the LunarPages product, I could net some good spending money without doing much work.
Step 2: Advertise with impunity
The Slashdot community is very sensitive to advertisement. If a study was ever conducted, I predict the intersection between Slashdot users and Adblock users is much higher than the general web using public. With this in mind, I knew I couldn't just spam in the comments. The solution turned out to be subtle and simple: put the ad in your signature. For those who don't know, a user's signature is a small piece of text that is added to the bottom of every message you post. This concept came from e-mail, but forums picked up the idea and Slashdot kept it alive with their commenting system.
Two things are true when you create a signature. First, no one seems to question the fact that it carries an ad, as long as your post is well received. Relevance helps here, but I found that humor with a dash of relevance was really the easiest way to grab attention. Second, not everyone will see it. This second point means that you will be cutting down on the potential buyers, but because of the way Slashdot works, it also means you're further targeting your message. Slashdot doesn't show signatures if you're logged out, so only people who cared enough to create an account and login will see it.
Step 3: Be visible
I have a theory about Slashdot that is probably not groundbreaking in web company circles: people don't read very far down the screen. The graph of x users that scroll y percent down the page is probably a very nice curve that drops off quickly and then slowly approaches zero. Think 1/x. I observed the value of getting your comment at the top of the list, and the only way to do that is to post quickly.
The other visibility factor on Slashdot is the comment moderation system. Each comment can be moderated by a sampling of other users. As a reader, you can filter out the low rated comments, and by default anything less than 3 points is relegated to a far less visible status. If a comment reaches a net of 5 positive votes, it will be seen by anyone who reads the comments on a particular story. So your goal here is: +5 and first post.
It turns out that it's hard to be the first post. It's somewhat less difficult to score a +5. Good luck for you, the first couple of posts are usually trolls (the first one often exclaiming their success in being first), so as long as you can be the first +5 post, you'll guarantee that anyone who reads the comments will defeinitely see your post, and your ad. I discovered a very simple technique. Slashdot users will rate any relevant Simpsons quote "+5 Funny." The Simpsons have covered every conceivable topic, so it stands to reason that there is a relevant Simpsons quote for any given Slashdot discussion. If I ever go back to school for a Master's degree, I would strongly consider creating software that could cough up a relevant Simpsons quote for any given topic as my thesis. So the technique is to wait for a new Slashdot topic, quickly digest the content, and using my complete knowledge of all of the good Simpsons episodes, post a comment that is mostly based off of a Simpsons quote. I should go back and measure, but almost every post I made was scored +5, and was high enough that my advertisement was seen by tons of users.
The Results
If you have a real job, my results will sound like peanuts. I've since grown up, graduated from school, been married, had two kids, et cetera, so this kind of work is no longer appealing to me, but at the time it was a great way to score some extra dollars without appearing to do anything more than what I was already doing (that is, reading Slashdot and working on my ubernerd street cred.) Caveats out of the way, I managed to be paid just under $600 per year for two years. I only really tried for about half of both of those years too.
The takeaway? Marketing is real. By hacking it myself, I found out how to score a meager return on my time investment. You need to make sure people can see it, and hooking up the right people is even better. And dropping a Simpsons quote never hurt. ;-)
1 comment:
I don't get why you hated English so much. You're good at writing. Your English teachers must have been bitches.
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