Let me share some thoughts with you guys, in no particular order as to importance.
I have extended the offer to any plant society, or area of discussion that anyone wishes to pursue, the use of the "facilities" here as they like. Several plant societies have come, then lost interest. And a few other requests have been accommodated - that too have lost interest. In the seven years the forum and the wiki have been around, I have lost money every month.
You Croton Heads have been great resource for participation and the sharing of knowledge, so your enthusiasm is appreciated. And I have honored my promise to the Croton Society that I would allow you guys to determine your own fate and that I would assist in any way possible to help you promote Crotons. I can offer some suggestions, and I intend to continue to provide a fast, up to date, functioning and secure website for your use.
To provide the fast display and loading of so many large photos, to keep spammers at bay and software up to date, and to assure that comprehensive backups are in place to prevent data loss is not cheap. I have never asked for money, nor do I intend to. But to help with expenses I needed to 1) attract a more varied demographic of plant people, and 2) I needed to add the new advertising. And I can report that with the name change, and some new advertising strategies, things have really turned around.
As to attracting more participants - I have included a chart below to show that new viewership has gone from around 20% of the traffic, to almost 40% of the traffic (and the general traffic has also grown) - a very quick reaction that I hope will continue. There are some things we could do, but I can't do them alone. I will be showing you some things we could do to provide some online articles. The "Croton Corner" could publish a Blog here - everything is already in place. And something worth considering is doing what a lot of forums like this do - that is, they do not allow the viewing of photos until you are registered - the idea being that people wish to see the photos, so they register - then, since they are registered they are more inclined to comment, ask questions, and participate. What do you think? Anything you guys wish to do with the Croton Forum, I will support.
So take a look at the following charts, and perhaps that will give you a better idea of the benefits of the name change and adding some advertising. The first full month (Feb) of advertising is on track to bring in about $75 - and the cost of this server is $100/mo. With a little more effort and fine tuning, I think I can cover expenses soon. This will be a big relief as opposed to $1000/year out of pocket for an asset that had not grown in years. So with you continued support, and if you wish to try some new things and strategies, I will be happy to assist and see what we could accomplish and create a useful tropical gardening community.
