For the first time ever, the Spring is asking it's users to help out. You don't have to, but do it if you can. It costs $1299.00 a quarter to host the Spring servers on a T-1. Jeff Kramers charges us $250 a month for system admin work, and there is a $100 a month software fee from Armidale Software for our conferencing software. So what's that all come to? Well, if you toss in about $250 a month for misc expenses, which is probably very convservative, it's about $2600 a quarter or $1033 per month. The only income we get comes from website developement and our only website currently paying is childrenstory/tvpc which pays about $600 - $1000 per quarter, some of which goes to a web authoress. So, if you can, sen dyour contibution to: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 You can do it anonymous or opening. Contributors will be sent some kind of memonto like a Spring mug, a hat, or something to express our gratitude. I'll link this into drool also.

Our T-1 fee is due 7/31/98, so that's why I'm starting this now. No contribution will be too small or insignificant.

Terry, I shall be glad to contribute (tax deductible?...you are non-profit). However, I have no objection to adverts. Geocities pays a lot of the websites' real estate.If you polled the members, I doubt many would object;. and that would relieve the fund- raising.

We're not non-profit, yet. But I'll look in to this status. Obviously, we should qualify. And I'm open to adverts.

Will do as soon as my painting money comes in, Terry.

Thanks Heide, that address is correct.

I don't know, honey :-( I'm having the same problem with other topics...and the mark everything as read...

OH goodie! I'm not braindead, after all! *kiss*

That sometimes happens when the system has a date glitch, like when the date changes to 2036 or something. I reset the date yesterday.

Will do.

From Jonathon Langley today, $486 for some web work I did for him on http://www.tvpc.com and http://www.childrenstory.com Does anyone have ideas for new children's stories or illustrations for existing, legendary children's story? What stories are we missing?

Pledge Address: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Checks made out to "The Spring"

Thanks so much to Evelyn for here most generous contribution which arrived in yesterday's mail! Thank you so much Evelyn. It really helps.

Thank you so much Evelyn My pleasure, Terry. We have a great gang on Drool. (Even when we're fighting) :-) Led by our outstanding host, Nan!! Thanks , Doll!

total to date $150 We're a fourth of the way to our goal of raising $600 to make our fourth quarter internet access payment. Send to: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 payable to Paul Terry Walhus or The Spring And thanks to Karen for the note and check received yesterday!

I haven't forgotten you either, Terry. Just still waiting for my money to come in, so I can send you a donation. Unfortunately my buyer has 3 months to pay, so just be patient.

No problem, and thanks! I have an idea on the domain name suggestions. If you make a suggestion, I'll co-register it in your name as the owner and if we sell it, the Spring will split the returns 50/50 with the person who is the name co-owner.

Not acceptable - that's not fair. What would be fair is if you told us all how to register, and we share our returns 50/50 with the Spring. And the names that are registered by the Spring should only earn money for the Spring. If we register names, splitting it 50/50 would still earn us money that we would not have had otherwise, plus it would earn the Spring extra money on top of the money it earns from registering its own names. Taking money from the Spring is unfair, as the Spring is working at a l ss, and is unemployed(!!) - unlike those who log in every day. If us users can't however register extra names ourselves, then coming up with them is the least we can do - the Spring should not have to split money with US to induce us to help. Because then we're a greedy bunch of parasites who should not be here, but pimping off people within our reach.

Fair enough. I was just trying to provide incentive for folks to help dream up some domain names. And website ideas. artcafe.com is gone. So is sportscafe.com.

It's enough incentive that we're allowed to be here in the first place. I think we would all like to keep the Spring going. And besides..... THE WALHUS IS OUR MASTER...WE HAVE BEEN CHOSEN

I AM THE WALHUS--KOOKOOAJOOB...

ha-ha!!!!

Can you charge to credit cards, terry? I was thinking of dumping my WELL account, which would mean that I could divert my $15 a month your direction. Let me know.

We'll set up a page for this as part of the Spring Store. We need to develop our commerce section so we can sell websites, local internet access and process contributions via credit card.

For now, the best way is to send a check made out to the Spring to: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek TX 78612

Didja get it yet, Terry??

Not yet. I wonder what happened?

(*sigh*) Guess I'll have to do some detective work...

I don't have a check account. How embarrassing. I'll wait till the credit card thing is set up, and send a monthly contribution like Mike.

Hehhee...my financial situation is rather more dire than i had thought. how would $10 a month do for the moment? :)) if you want to sort this out, terry, call me: 6pm-11pm GMT (austin is 6/7 hours behind?) +44 1273 727157

Great, let's discuss it in depth in the projects conference. I posted some things there today.

the spring needs your contributions to continue functioning. I'm at a critical point with this system as we approach our 10th anniversary. I have to work full time and manage rental houses and find myself without time to manage this system and lacking in funds to continue to subsidize it. I have to figure out a way to make this float on it's own between now and March, which is when I'll have to decide to continue or not. basically, it costs $400 per month for our bandwidth, it costs $150 per month for system admin work (jeffk), an unknown amount (but not insignificant) for hardware/software costs, $100 per month for Yapp licensing. Our only income is from contributions and a few websites (tvpc.com, childrenstory.com, lifespaces.com, and eatsolar.com) which bring in around $250 a month. to continue, we need: 1. administrative help with billing and sales 2. more websites to host 3. electronic commerce and database connectivity 4. hardware upgrades Property taxes are due and my rentals are down right now. There haven't been any contributions lately. And our population seems to be leveling off, not growing and expanding, even though our number of visitors is a a good level. I hope we can turn thing around. I, for one, would like to see it continue. But I can't go it alone much longer.

terry, i'll send you some $$$. also, i would like to suggest that we consider abandoning Yapp for something cheaper. $100 a month? there are so many alternatives out there that are a lot cheaper than that, i think. what about jef poskanzer's acme news? another suggestion would be to move all of the spring servers to the Linux OS. it is cheaper to run and you would likely find a lot more folks who would be willing to help maintain it for free, and you would not lose the rock solid stability that comes with a Unix environment. just some suggestions!

Good suggestions. As far as os goes, we already have our operating system sin place and paid for, these aren't really costing us much. We just installed FreeBSD on access.spring.net and it's very minimal in cost. The Yapp license is paid for basically (it was about $1,000) and the $100 a month is if we go over a certain number of logins. It might be more costly to switch over to a new sosftware system, as yapp, despite a few warts, works pretty well for what we do. What we need, and what may be evolving at my houses in Austin and Cedar Creek is a little geek crew that can sell and produce websites and commerce sites. Tami has agreed to take over running the Spring, as far as doing billing and some sysadmin work, so this will help. I work about 12 hours a day average at my gig. Jeff is pretty loose about his fee, and he gets it far less than monthly, he's pretty lenient and is aware that we're not all that well heeled. Same with Kaylene, she's let it ride for now. Maybe we need to develope some more specialized websites of our own and have ads and commerce enabled on them. There's also potential for being an isp out in the Bastrop area. It's a matter or prioritizing and organizing all these options.

Terry, I've recently heard about a new web ad rep firm that charges a hefty commission (50%) but allows you to do ad contracts on a month-to-month basis, which would be a safe way to test the waters. It's called Burst Media (www.burstmedia.com, I think) and I've checked them out: a local IU basketball site here in Bloomington (peegs.com) uses them and says he always has an ad run that nets him at least a dollar a thousand page views, and occasionally double or triple that. So this guy must earn around $50 a month. You will see per M ad rates much higher, but in looking around, the trouble seems to be with unsold inventory. Also the scary feeling that comes with long contracts. I could not make myself sign one with Flycast for Pemberley.com a year ago or so. Might be worth looking into.

I meant to say he likely nets $500.

From what I've seen, Terry, the most successful conferencing systems are those that possess either of the following properties: 1. A ridiculously large amount of money 2. Are specialised. Obviously (1.) is out for us, short of me winning the lottery and since I don't play the lottery that's not going to happen any time soon. So, (2.) it is, then. What do we specialise in? you might ask. Well, cast your mind back and realise that we've done it ralready a couple of times: bronte and drool drew in so many people they nearly crashed the place out! It would seem that the time has come to bite the bullet and start putting advertising in. Banner ads relevant to particular conferences could b inserted, I guess, and our regulars encouraged to click them once every couple of days - heck they might even buy something. The combination of two or three "dynamite" conferences, with scores of people in, and them all gaily clicking their mouse buttons on the banner ads is not going to hurt the old finances, is it? Maybe shell accounts should be charged for, since they side-step the banner ads? It doesn't have to be that much a month/quarter/year (*please!*) but it would bring in some revenue. I see on the Spring web site there's a page detailing the price of various different connection packages (dialup, ISDN, etc.). HOw about polishing this up and really pushing it around your local area? Give people a great deal - much cheaper than they might expect to get off another ISP, and they'll come in in droves. It doesn't matter if your profit margins are small if the number of people is high enough. Become an Amazon Bookstore Associate vendor. Each conference, or even several topics within a conference could have affiliate links, and you would make something like 10 or 15% off of each sale. Offer cut-price server space - lower than anybody else in your area. Find out the shortest length of time it's possible to get a dedicated web server package (you know, space, connectivity, etc.) in your area, and then chop that in half - if there's one thing that scares people, it's committing to something for too long. Sell domain names like www.(yourname).spring.net to people who don't want to sign up for a two-year InterNIC thing. Stop registering random domain names in the hope that they'll one day become valuable - I've got to say I think it's unlikely that you'll net another $20k by selling silk.com! Each domain costs money, and it's money that could perhaps be better directed... Finally (for now!) ADVERTISE! And I don't mean advertising in the conferences of other communities - those people have already chosen where they want to be, and are unlikely to do more than come over and have a quick look. Advertising in the "old" media is often more useful - the "cool and edgy" article should have been a major breakthrough on people coming through. Perhaps you could get a follow-up article? One thing that could draw completely new people in is pushing a whole internet/Spring connecti ity package - monthly dialup/ISDN internet connection and full Spring access (waive any Shell account fees) all in one shebang - heck, you could even design a modem package for those people (and there are a lot of them!) who don't have modems! License some third-party computers and sell those, throwing in free on-line support here are the Spring. Seems to me there are lots of things we can do, if only we pull our fingers out!

hey, i've got an idea for a conference topic: how about "What Do You Collect?" and it could have topics ranging from barbie to railroad cars to furby. there are so many websites out there dedicated to collecting and i think it would have a drool-worthy success rate. tell me watcha think!

wolfie, the collecting conference has been set up! enjoy!

you are such a sweetie! thanks sooooo much, ray *hugs*

and remember, if you order stuff from Amazon.com, we are now an affiliate and get commissions, so go through one of our links or just bookmark http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/thespring as your Amazon.com link (every little bit helps!)

Again thanks for the generous $150 contribution! And for rescuing our domain name austen.com on a day when the Spring bank balance was subzero. We have our angels!

I would like to thank Elizabeth for the very kind contribution "For the DWG". Hope you're having a great day in West Virginia today, Elizabeth! Folks like these help us keep going!

quick question: checks ok? and if so, who are they made out to?

To Paul Terry Walhus or to the Spring, either way!

Either way. Right now the Spring's strapped financially, particularly in the next two weeks. So any contributions would be most welcome! I'm trying to raise at least $400 by Friday to pay ddc.net. I'll be albel to manage most of the rest of the $2000 owed to them around the first of next month. Contributions should be sent o a new address: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Drive Austin, TX 78758 I will be putting up an appreciation page soon, for all those who have made such great contributions.

hmmm...

found one!

Whew!

Thanks so much to the four folks who have sent a combined total of nearly $200.00. Our goal is $400 a quarter. Soon, we'll be putting up an appreciation page thanking all those who have contributed (unless, of course, they specify that they want to remain anonymous). These folks have done so much to help us along. Another way you can help is to sign up for your own "briefcase"; the Spring has just beomce an affiliate with Visto and they offer a wonderful web based application that let's you keep track of your calendar, files, photos. email, address book, tasks, bookmarks, events, family, friends and co-workers. It will be a great help to you and your group. And every time someone signs up, the Spring will get $2.00. So this is a way you can help yourself and help the community. Please sign up and make your contribution that way! You can click on this banner to get started. Or you can send a contribution to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Dr Austin, TX 78758 Soon, we may be taking credit cards for contributions as well! For now, checks payable to the Spring. Or just send us $2 bucks by signing up with Visto. It's a good thing.

terry, you should be getting a couple of bucks from me...the link to visto needs to be typed into the address block including the "page=home" part. cutting and pasting didn't work for me.

that is, until the banner works *grin*

More foreign currency should be showing up from the Ladies of Drool. I will give them another good nudge - warn me next time bills are due - about 2 weeks before they pull the plugs. I will rattle more chains and send you my contribution, too.

Thanks! Basically, it costs $1200 a quarter for our T-1 that we run the Spring on, it isn't our only expense, but it's the critical one. It's actually a pretty good deal, it's just a lot to bite off for one person. I tried to fix the link to visto on http://www.spring.net. If we get a lot of $2 clickthroughs that will help, but it will take 50 of those to match the $100 contribution we got last week. But every bit helps, and if we can get enough of these you never know! I'll let you know how many of these $2 hits we get, I know of at least one (wolf) already. If anyone else clicks through, please post something so I know if folks are doing this.

I wanna picture... you know like when you sponsor a starving child... I wanna picture!!

What happened to my invisible picture of the starving child and message from same written in its own handwriting?

the kid in that picture was eating a sardine sandwich with a side of poi... hardly in need...

You peeked!!!

Alright, alright, I'll try and find a starving child and get a picture.

So far, $8.00 in revenues including my own sign up. That means 3 folks here have signed up so far. If you haven't yet signed up, the best place is from http://www.workontheweb.com.

Visto also gave me this report: Web Site Transaction Day Transaction Date Impressions Click Throughs Click to Impression % Work on the Web Wednesday 06/30/1999 Subtotal 384 impressions 22 click throughs 5.729% click to impression So our first day, we 5% of the folks who saw the link actually complete the process. Is our link messing up? What do you think is going on with these stats?

(The patented Wer (TM)-Hustle! Go, Buddy, Go!)

My SO would have a fit if I took on any more here. But let me think on that proposition. Wer does not have to hustle me; He has me firmly wound arund his little finger. I should really spend more time in Drool on 113 and get it going again. They seem to need to be entertained there, so they left me in charge. Silly people!

some folks, like me (and bert, my feathered friend) don't come thru the spring.net page but rather thru main. maybe we could include the link on all the conferences'pages?

Good idea Wolf. I come in thru /read/whatever/#/new or the main page. Need a link inside! Definitely!

aaaiiiyyeeee!!!!!!!

Today we struck out on our Visto link. Although we had over 500 folks view the link, zero clicked through! So our click through percentage is now in the 2% range. And I had three rentors move out of my Cedar Creek house today leaving 3 vacancies (huge loss not coming at a good time) so I had to cancel my trip to Tennessee this weekend to a Fourth of July Fest and I put an ad in the Austin paper for room mates. Gotta really hustle now to get folks out there. But on the good side, I found a place that will process credit cards for donations, with no upfront fee and a 9.5% processing fee. , please call me about this and I'll give you to development url. And I'll email it to you. I'm going to go by a few of the Churches out in Cedar Creek and see about finding some folks who might be interested in the place. It's a great place and it's wired to the net and all.

good luck!

Just to make sure that I don't spread a wrong link, which I have posted on drool #119: http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click/mid1291956?siteid=5325183&bfpage=home Marcia, Karen, Heide, Terry, wer, whoever is involved in the Visto-thing: I have copied the above link from the one you deposited so secretly on http://www.firth.com/ , so I assume they will realise that anybody coming in through the above one is from Spring???!! PS: Whoever dropped that Visto logo and link on the firth.com entry page: I know that all of us are very short of time, but I would appreciate much if you'd at least drop me a note the next time you change something *in* my Afirthionado files? Thank you.

well, what about allowing the hosts of the conferences to post the links on their conference main pages?

go, baby, go! you got the smarts and technology!!! and when have I told you you couldn't do something, Wolf?