So here's my experiment.
Last year, I had this great idea for a WAP notification service. I got a domain: WAP Alerts.com. Then I did nothing. It went onto my to-do list. Everyone and their mother released services as good or better than my idea. In the last year, I've done a lot of work with phpBB. In January, I suggested putting phpBB onto a site that needed a quick and dirty forum system. They also wanted a way to automatically add available job listings. I've always been a big fan of RSS and XML. So, I worked up an RSS collection mod. Throw in sources, point the results at forum sections and tie it into a cron job. Voila: it fills up with news from the web.
In the last week, I've been all about crossing finish lines, because it started to feel like I've stopped doing that and living in a perpetual limbo of 85% done projects. So, I threw down a gaunlet: could I take a domain that I own, pop it onto an excellent web host, throw up a near base install of phpBB (e.,g I added my RSS mod), tweak a template, gather some RSS sources and let it go? Basically build an automat for the web. Why do this? Well, I have monetized the site with Google Adsense.
This site took 12hrs. of spare time to build: about 1/3 set-up, 1/3 tweaking the template and 1/3 adding the data sources. It costs $7/mo. to host. The experiment: can this site earn $8+/month? I will keep you informed. I kept notes and if this works, I will likely a) make the notes available; and b) will repeat this concept for other topics.
Last year, I had this great idea for a WAP notification service. I got a domain: WAP Alerts.com. Then I did nothing. It went onto my to-do list. Everyone and their mother released services as good or better than my idea. In the last year, I've done a lot of work with phpBB. In January, I suggested putting phpBB onto a site that needed a quick and dirty forum system. They also wanted a way to automatically add available job listings. I've always been a big fan of RSS and XML. So, I worked up an RSS collection mod. Throw in sources, point the results at forum sections and tie it into a cron job. Voila: it fills up with news from the web.
In the last week, I've been all about crossing finish lines, because it started to feel like I've stopped doing that and living in a perpetual limbo of 85% done projects. So, I threw down a gaunlet: could I take a domain that I own, pop it onto an excellent web host, throw up a near base install of phpBB (e.,g I added my RSS mod), tweak a template, gather some RSS sources and let it go? Basically build an automat for the web. Why do this? Well, I have monetized the site with Google Adsense.
This site took 12hrs. of spare time to build: about 1/3 set-up, 1/3 tweaking the template and 1/3 adding the data sources. It costs $7/mo. to host. The experiment: can this site earn $8+/month? I will keep you informed. I kept notes and if this works, I will likely a) make the notes available; and b) will repeat this concept for other topics.
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