Paid advertising by EnglishWithDavid?

[Torsten]

Hi,

I've just noticed that David of EnglishWithDavid apparently has paid some of our forum members to insert his signature into each of their forum posts. This is quite a new concept and so far I haven't seen it on other forums yet.

My question is what do you think of this approach?

Many thanks,
Torsten
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Kitosdad]

Dear Torsten, although not directly stated, I presumed that the approach would have been with your permission.

The payment I was offered was personally declined, but with a request that it would be paid to a charity of David's choice. He agreed to do this.

If this is in any way causing you discomfort, I will retract my permission immediately.

Kitosdad.
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If you need me, I'm here.

[Torsten]

Hi Bill,

Thanks a lot for your quick response. At this point I'm not trying to judge anything -- I was a bit surprised to see the sigs at first but now I think it's quite an interesting concept and I'd like to hear what our forum members have to say on this.

Regards,
Torsten
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Kitosdad]

I must add Torsten, that I have been more than a little surprised at the seemingly slow infiltration of other Language School managers appearing on the Forum. The fact that you haven't seen fit to remark on this has kept me schtum.!

Kitosdad.
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If you need me, I'm here.

[Sahid59]

..

As long as the legal income of this ad. goes to some beneficial cause..I don't feel any harm in it..that is to say...from my point of view..!

..
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Sahid59

Better tomorrow with better English

[Shyone]

Hi Torsten,

if I ever get my 100th post together I will carry the same signature, without the "paid ad" label, but a tiny sentence of my own either before or after it.

Therefore I can hardly have a problem with it. I see it as helping a friend out when I can.

I think you should build on it. Perhaps David can mention your site somewhere too, and then you both can profit from it in some way.
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No comment

[Mitchell..]

i saw videos with ads on Youtube, but other product not another video site.

[English With David]

Hi, Torsten,

I'd figured that this would catch your attention quickly, and it did.

As I'm sure you've seen, my own site is still in its infancy, so I'm not even sure how much a subscriber is truly worth, financially. For the few friends that I've approached so far, I've arbitrarily offered the very-rough equivalent of a (US) penny a post, and that obviously assumes that the posts themselves are "real"; I've been pretty selective in who I've approached.

I did check this site's FAQ first as far as guidelines on advertising. Not much is mentioned, so I followed the conventions of most other forums, where reasonable advertising is limited to one's signature line. This usually includes affiliate advertising, which is effectively what I am doing by recruiting friends here.

Once I can start generating a small, steady income from EnglishWithDavid.com, I'll have the money available to reinvest into advertising, as well as having a better idea of the financial value of each new subscriber, (on a statistical basis, of course). Armed with those two things, my plan is to start advertising on English-Test.net directly, using Google's advertising system.

In additional to paid advertising, there might be other opportunities for us to be able to help each other. For example, several of my site improvement suggestions, especially the most recent one, can help build this site's audience significantly, and I would even be willing to roll up my sleeves and help Slava with the software changes. (I did used to be a code monkey in a prior life.) In exchange, we could discuss the idea of adding a voluntary, unchecked co-registration checkbox to your own forms. (i.e., "[_] I also want to join the Club at EnglishWithDavid.com.")

My last business, before it collapsed completely two years ago, grossed US$400k/year, and I'm hoping that I can build this new business up to a reasonable level, as well, (especially given as I'm broke and unemployed at the moment). That will obviously take a significant investment of time and money. I'd love to be able to have the opportunity to be able to direct much of that towards the growth of English-Test.net.

-- David Beroff
FREE English Videos, Private Lessons, and more at http://EnglishWithDavid.com !!

[Infin1ty]