listnook gold: now with actual features!

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>And if you have other ideas for keeping the site afloat, please share them! Okay! Here's mine. **Listnook Gold Promotional Packages** Have a promo package advertising "*Listnook Gold*", such as- C**** 1-3 color t-shirt, stickers, a lanyard with a "name tag" (think listnook meet and greets), and other silly things such as buttons, pens, bobble heads, etc. Tier the packages and have each package come with a 12 month subscription, non-stackable. Give the different tiers different levels of Gold access. * **Tier 1** • $5 : 5 stickers and a button. *(Get the badge for current year. Allow people to continue stacking new badges, new years, return customers.)* * **Tier 2** • $10 : 5 stickers, a button, a pen, car decal. *(Get the badge + friends list details)* * **Tier 3** • $20 : 10 stickers, two buttons, a pen, car decal, lanyard. *(Badge + Friends list + Sorting)* * **Tier 4** • $30 : 10 stickers, two buttons, two pens, car decal, lanyard, t-shirt. *(Badge + Friends list + Sorting + Access to TOP SECRET what ever it may be)* This way you are not forcing a monthly subscription and you're allowing people to participate that otherwise wouldn't by giving them a choice on how much they want to spend. *Edit: I understand the goal here is to make money and not spend it. But I think that with a little money put forth you can get a bunch of c**** promotional objects that people can use to show off how much they love listnook, versus just purchasing vanilla items in the listnook store.* *Edit: Keep re-editing to fix format and spelling...*

Here's a post I made a few days back. http://www.listnook.com/r/listnook.com/comments/cqm1b/why_listnook_doesnt_have_any_of_my_advertising/c0uhz64 I work on a top 20 website. We have no problem making millions just from ads. I'd be happy to talk about some specifics in a pm if you're interested.

I would much prefer a "punch the monkey" popup to a Sony ad whose mute button doesn't work. **F***** your Sony ad.

Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

My main concern was that, ever since the email verification thing happened, I've seen enough mod mail to know that people who have been users for years are pissed off that they couldn't submit like they normally did. That's the main reason I didn't verify my email then, or subscribe to listnook gold. I felt like, if I'm going to do something for you, you should do something for me, not take away privileges from other members who didn't want to verify or donate. Hence, the reason I've neither verified or subscribed. I do like the new listnook gold, however. I like having new features. Well done. That is almost enough reason for me to subscribe. I just don't agree with making other long-term users suffer by taking away their posting privileges because they simply want to listnook the way they've always been listnooking. Also, you need more diversified merch.

I donated initially, but I'm not going to subscribe. I have enough things that automatically remove money from my bank account every month, and it's part of my personal financial policy to heavily scrutinize any recurring monthly payments. I think my yearly cutoff for sites that don't actually provide me a service that's monetarily valuable (like a t****** tracker) is about $10.

>listnook desperately needs the green light to hire more engineers, and so we've got to find some way to make money. The other side of the obvious "hire business people, not engineers" advice is that hiring more engineers will only make your problem worse. If you get more engineers you'll undoubtably make a better site, but that will the only attract more users. And since you don't have a sustainable business model this will only mean you have larger problems. Get your business model down first (I don't think it's listnook gold) and then worry about how you're going make the site more awesome.

Replying here in hope you see it.. I donated not because I want special privilege's, I donated because I want to make listnook better for everyone. Making this an "exclusive club" goes against the very reason I donated. So thanks for letting me keep access to lounge, but I hope you plan on extending the listnook gold features to everyone on listnook eventually.

There's a lot more you guys could be doing to generate cash. You need businessmen on your team... [See past post on the subject](http://www.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/cnth8/making_ends_meet_tldr_remember_that_joke_about/c0twf97?context=3)

Why not just leave up the option to donate though? Making the subscription model is barring out a lot of people that might be willing to give over some money overall; I know I'm one, for as much as I love Listnook, it's not worth money out of my pocket month after month. Ultimately I have to question why the responsibility of maintaining Listnook is up to the users. If Listnook or Conde Nast can't support this site in it's current state, shouldn't it be the responsibility of those within the company to find a new stream of revenue? And lastly don't you feel that this Listnook Gold w/ member benefits will split the userbase? I'm just not liking where this panhandling is headed. And shit, I saw you guys were hiring an Intern a while back... Why not reach out again for college/grad students in the field and offer Interships or Co-ops? You'd have another body to deal with the load; hell I'd be willing to join up.

>needs the green light to hire more engineers, Aren't there willing Listnookors who would do this for free?

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I am seriously unimpressed with this whole thing. I far prefer shitty load times to this class of superiors you are creating. You are turning this site from something I feel a part of into somethign i feel apart from. You ask for trust, but you will recieve none from me, listnook gold was a joke, now listnook gold is a joke. Kill it before it kills you.

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Here, we wrote a guide to advertising listnook this weekend. There are over 360 comments now, many from listnookors with lots of experience in web advertising. Please read it. [Listnook guide to advertising](http://www.listnook.com/r/listnook.com/comments/cqm1b/why_listnook_doesnt_have_any_of_my_advertising/)

What did you guys benefit from being acquired by Conde Nast? Serious question, I have no idea how big businesses work.

Oh look, I'm one of raldi's friends... HEY!!!

The community already hates pre-order only DLC in games and now there's pre-order only DLC (literally) for listnook? Something that can only be received once? ... Those of us with no ability to use paypal and living too far to send postcards (rural India where the post takes 5 days to reach the nearest major city, let alone another country) are completely out of the loop until you get other payment methods.

I donated prior to this offer (on July 17th) and never got an acknowledgment, trophy or access to supposed lounges.

Did listnook ever get my origami crane covered in gold glitter? :) Edit: Replaced frown with smile! Yay!

So I donated 15 bucks, almost immediately. If I buy another year, it'll just attach to March-ish paid-up time, yes? It's not going overlap and cancel out the donation, is it?

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I sent in a card but I don't have any new trophy. I wrote it out in longhand and everything.

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> It's been said before, but we are trying not to be evil. Listnook isn't a charity. It's a business. We know that, but we don't like to think about it. To us, it's a social gathering point, like the Starbucks on the corner. Starbucks is a business too, but we don't think of it that way. I gave you guys money. And I felt like I was contributing to something. But this *feels* like a subscription. It feels like a business transaction. I give you money, you give me features. The problem is that you've set a price on a service, and now my mind is weighing those features against your price point. And it doesn't measure up. Here's what I think: **Don't give me a price.** Give me a suggested donation. Let me give you less than that, and still get some kind of shiny token (like a trophy) that has no value except "hey, thanks for your support". If you want, put a minimum on the features that are more expensive in server resources, or a minimum in general to deal with the work of dealing with so many transactions. But by putting a *price* on the whole thing, I don't feel like "hey, I did something cool today; improving the community while makin' those cool listnook admin guys' day a bit nicer". I feel like I bought something. Even your "thank you" note feels perfunctory now; something a cashier at the grocery store would say to me.

I understand. Well, actually, I don't *really* understand. The fact that four engineers maintain this HUGE site is astounding, especially when having to constantly worry about appeasing and maintaining the community. It's just that... I've seen this before. You create the ability to hide ads with a paid subscription and all of a sudden the ads become more and more obtrusive. The solution: if you don't like the ads, pay the fee. I don't believe *you'll* do this, its your bosses I'm worried about: the 5 billion dollar corporation Conde Nast. If they see a door they can open to make more money, they might open it. I'd rather the door never be built. I don't like it, but I'm not going anywhere. I trust you guys. Also, I just realized how much of a fuckin p**** I sound like in this thread. Keep up the good work and don't be evil.

The entire mood of this monetization campaign has drastically changed. It's gone from "Listnook needs help, would the amazing user base please come to our aid?" to "Listnook is going to start charging a monthly subscription to users who are willing so that we may make some money." The first provokes an outpouring of love. The second is like asking to be taxed. I'd consider a once every 3 month donation drive, with all who donate receiving 3 months of listnook gold status and a unique trophy. I do not like the idea of this subscription. We want to feel good about helping listnook, not like we're subscribing to something.

But once the page sorting is scalable there may be some reluctance on your part to switch it over to everyone as you are taking features away from paying members. If 30% of listnook gold subscribers only register to use the sorting feature and then you offer it to everyone you will lose 30% of your subscribers. This is where the problem is. Taking features away from a paying subscribed base and giving it to a non-paying user base seems highly unlikely.

> outside of p***, which nobody pays for anymore Last week I finally got a visa card instead of my banks own shit. I rejoiced, I could *finally* purchase p***! Not as a regular thing, but as a right of passage, taking me from child to man, I'm a **real man** finally. I'm c**** though, so I order the 1 day $1 trial. Transaction completes, I rejoice. I login to the site... **wtf** my $1 trial is a PREVIEW OF THE SITE. No p***, just able to browse their archive. clicking download tells me I must pay $50 to subscribe to a "proper" account. So f*** paying for p***, never again. I will continue to stream in low quality, f*** you p*** sites, f*** you. I want my $1 back.

I definitely agree. We should take a look at BoardGameGeek.com's system and do something similar. People earn site currency (geek gold) which they can use to purchase special microbadges that show up on their profile. You can also make a one time donation to receive a small amount of geek gold. The way most users get geek gold is by contributing to the site.

There are also chrome/firefox add ons that can already do all of this. I don't want new features, I want the current ones to work. Get more servers and what not.

I think the people who really got suckered, honestly, are the ones who donated in advance. Now the accounts they thought they had bought have been issued an expiration date. Anyone who gave money to listnook in order to buy a 'gold account' now has to continue to pay or lose their status. This is one of the rudest things I have ever seen a social networking site do, and I find it appalling that listnook admins would even suggest it. If they insist on the subscription model, people who donated before that should get to keep their accounts for a *lifetime*, because otherwise would be to *lie* to the people who gave them money.

I donated and I unfortunately must admit that you are correct and I am a sucker.

The donation was precisely that, a donation. I sent them a few bucks to help them out, even though it wasn't a shitload of cash. I view the initial payment as nothing more. The subscription is voluntary, one which I won't be participating in because of the (current) top comment. I have no problem giving them a one time donation. Requiring me to, especially with 'features' that don't interest me at all? No thanks. So, I don't think I was suckered. Those who choose to subscribe to the new payment method, however...

I think the donation model (ala NPR, Wikipedia) is a potentially good model that hasn't been tried enough on the web. It will fit in with this audience's values better. Granted - it will be like herding cats once or twice a year when you have to do the donation drive, but I think there is real potential there. A graph on the right side of the page with "so far we have reached $xxx of our $yyy goal", and listnook could still offer rewards to people who donate, just like they did with Listnook gold (or maybe even more so - various levels of rewards including listnook stickers, t-shirts etc for the higher donations). Seems promising.

> Why cant it be like Wikipedia Believe it or not, people find Wikipedia more valuable and it receives more donations than Listnook ever will.

New listnook gold feature: Comments are not interrupted by random ellipses.

This is exactly how I feel. I donated because I use this site so much and wanted to help them out, but a monthly fee is just greedy. I guess I am a sucker.

I completely agree, I thought they were going to say those who donated before there were any features would have a lifetime Gold Account but was shocked when they still asked us to pay up.

A one-time fee would be *much* better.

Right on. This is like with that Israeli daycare where parents were punished with a small amount of money for a late pickup of their child. This turned the whole late arrival issue from a rude behavior to a service you pay for. In the end more parents ended up picking up their kids late after the monetary fine was introduced. What's even more paradoxical is that even after the late fee was canceled the rate of late pickups did not drop correspondingly. The human relation between parents and caregivers had already been altered from a social contract to a monetary one.

I was planning on donating to listnook when a few cheques cleared this month. Donating. Not paying for. **Donating.** I don't want listnook gold, I don't want new features. I don't want to be smugly superior to the plebs, I just wanted to help. However, now it feels like I'd be paying for a service (and, after about 5:30pm here in the UK, I usually can't access listnook because it's too busy, unless I log out), so f*** it. Ask for donations, by all means. Don't ask me to *pay* for additions to a service that I can't even use after 5:30 / 6:00pm BST.

Yeah, ironically I was fine just handing Listnook money, but now I'm thinking "hmm, is $3.99/month worth it? I'm just not sure." I hate to say it, but while I probably would have donated $5 every few months for quite a while, I'm probably not going to be subscribing.

I think it would be better to make it two separate things -- say, listnook gold is for those who want to donate (and it gives only badge) and listnook premium is subscription which adds features. This way **both** social and monetary relationships can be milked.

Exactly. And the Admins will have to make more features to try to make it worthwhile, which will increase grumbling from non-subscribers and subscribers who now feel they are entitled to more.

So basically, like prostitutes.

I think he's trying to say he wants listnook to have a 40 hour/month time limit. /s

Hey, man, we just like coupons okay. There's nothing wrong with that. We can quit using coupons any time we want. You hear that? Any time we want! You got me all a-twitter, now. I could really use a coupon.

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