Harringay Online funding - commercial possibilities

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on August 6, 2011 at 10:34

Hi Glen, yes the site does cost a few hundred each year to run. So far we've managed to cover that cost through donation and advertising. (But, of course the real cost, if we ran it on a business model, would be the time needed to run it).

I'd reframe your question somewhat and suggest that the question to ask is less about generating revenue and more about generating benefit - or to jump on a bandwagon, generating 'shared value' - something for the community (which will sometimes be revenue for the site) and something for the business; anything that can benefit the hood.

So, I'm very happy to use the site to support local businesses but I think it should be done on a quid pro quo basis. If the site's helping the business, then the business should help the site or the community. Here's our page on it.

Sometimes it's hard to draw a line between advertising and news or information. Take the recent opening of Moka. Yes it's a business and you could argue that the coverage I gave it was free advertising, but it offers a real amenity to the area and, as was probably quite clear, there was huge interest. So we have to use our discretion about where the line between promotion and information comes.

From time to time businesses come on to the site and seek to promote themselves without contacting us first or with no intention of generating shared value. When we see those instances, we remove any postings.

Hope that answers your question.

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Permalink Reply by matt on August 6, 2011 at 15:05

With world markets 'on the brink of collapse' you maybe looking for a safe place to invest for your retirement; Lunar Embassy. (?) :)

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