blonde, going forward.

[TightEnd]

The answers on newsletters are actually quite pathetic and embarrassing. Well at least I find it embarrassingly unprofessional

Anyway we're going to move to do text based non-deadline based (!) newsletters regularly, and there are occasional opportunities to get paid to spam the database on behalf of a third party, including one at the moment I am tying up.

[MPOWER]

If something similar has been suggested then apologies.

To give Blonde support in the way of £££££'s is to play on there Cardroom.

I haven't got time to play online poker to gind my way to be a winning player which will also benefit Blonde a Tenner in rake.

I'd much prefer a "Donate to Blonde" Button. Either paying on paypal or debit card or set a direct debit up.
Totally optional and discreet. I actually think Blonde offers a great service and for this i'm prepared to pay.

The benefit to me I'd prefer to donate direct to you  £XXX instead playing on line poker losing £XXXXX to rake you £X

Everyones a winner

Just an idea that will work. IMHO.

Regards

M

[byronkincaid]

I don't think it's a terrible idea this donating thing, I've seen other websites with that donate button on them and never been offended or anything but I very much doubt you're ever going to see them on blonde. tikay has obv been a very successful businessman in the past and clearly any businessman is going to have some winners and some losers just like Branson or Stelios or pretty much any investor/trader/poker player/whatever. So although he prob wouldn't say it my guess is that he would have too much self respect to ask for charity when this is meant to be a business. If there is a way to make money from the demand for updates then I'm sure tikay and tighty (tt?) will manage it eventually

[Colchester Kev]

Devils Advocate Alert

What happens IF

blonde put the button on for donations

We schedule some updates

we book the freelance updaters

we book accom

we book travel

the donations button does not collect enough to cover costs.

[nirvana]

If something similar has been suggested then apologies.

To give Blonde support in the way of £££££'s is to play on there Cardroom.

I haven't got time to play online poker to gind my way to be a winning player which will also benefit Blonde a Tenner in rake.

I'd much prefer a "Donate to Blonde" Button. Either paying on paypal or debit card or set a direct debit up.
Totally optional and discreet. I actually think Blonde offers a great service and for this i'm prepared to pay.

The benefit to me I'd prefer to donate direct to you  £XXX instead playing on line poker losing £XXXXX to rake you £X

Everyones a winner

Just an idea that will work. IMHO.

Regards

M

Excellent point imo, feel the same way

[Jamier-Host]

Devils Advocate Alert

What happens IF

blonde put the button on for donations

We schedule some updates

we book the freelance updaters

we book accom

we book travel

the donations button does not collect enough to cover costs.

Someone suggested a "Blue Peter" style target thingy before.

Could you not have it running during a weekend of updates with something like "if we hit this target we'll be back for GUKPT Walsall"

[Rookie (Rodney)]

What are the costs of say a 4 day GUKPT update?

[MPOWER]

"the donations button does not collect enough to cover costs".

Kev as long as Blonde has the same people around it I'm sure they will weather the storm and storms approaching.

The donate button idea is for someone like me or someone who enjoys the community i.e family members following updates of friends loved ones etc that are not poker players or just like the forum because it's a nice place to visit to contribute something.

I think you will get a reasonable amount of incremental income. Every £20 per week you can generate is a £1000
a year towards running costs soon adds up.

Regards

M

[TightEnd]

What are the costs of say a 4 day GUKPT update?

Two updaters. None are currently on the staff as we sadly know. We pay £100 per person per day. So thats £800. As was noted much earlier in the thread this is about a third of the rate that the large sites like PokerListings and PokerNews charge(d) for updates. This is only relevant in that we're competing for freelancers for some events. The £100 rate hasn't changed for years and frankly underdoes it.

Food allowance £20 or so per updater per day. They do long shifts over as much as 12 hours and to the best of my knowledge food is not provided by the GUKPT host venue, though it is at dtd, kindly

Hotel. One shared room perhaps at say £60 per night

Travel. Lets say £50 per updater


So totting that up £800 + £160 + £240 +100 so £1,200 or so

Cost for a two day two person dtd-er is £600-700 or so

Over a month on a basic slate of one GUKPT and one DTD we're talking £2,000 or so. To put this in context it exceeds the revenue (net) from our card-room in four of the last six months (though not previously, when revenue was higher). Here we are back to business model, weaknesses of our card-room etc etc


As to a donation button, I see it on a lot of fora but MOSTLY its on forums without associated businesses, thus non-commercial- forums only . If I said no it wouldn't be an issue of pride as such. I am sure we could get round the issue of it going into a big shareholders pot by setting it up to go to an "updates fund". I have my doubts though whether we'd receive the sums required to make the updates viable, on a regular basis.

[ripple11]

What are the costs of say a 4 day GUKPT update?

Two updaters. None are currently on the staff as we sadly know. We pay £100 per person per day. So thats £800. As was noted much earlier in the thread this is about a third of the rate that the large sites like PokerListings and PokerNews charge(d) for updates. This is only relevant in that we're competing for freelancers for some events. The £100 rate hasn't changed for years and frankly underdoes it.

Food allowance £20 or so per updater per day. They do long shifts over as much as 12 hours and to the best of my knowledge food is not provided by the GUKPT host venue, though it is at DTD, kindly

Hotel. One shared room perhaps at say £60 per night

Travel. Lets say £50 per updater


So totting that up £800 + £160 + £240 +100 so £1,200 or so

Cost for a two day two person DTD-er is £600-700 or so

Over a month on a basic slate of one GUKPT and one DTD we're talking £2,000 or so. To put this in context it exceeds the revenue (net) from our card-room in four of the last six months (though not previously, when revenue was higher). Here we are back to business model, weaknesses of our card-room etc etc


As to a donation button, I see it on a lot of fora but MOSTLY its on forums without associated businesses, thus non-commercial- forums only . If I said no it wouldn't be an issue of pride as such. I am sure we could get round the issue of it going into a big shareholders pot by setting it up to go to an "updates fund". I have my doubts though whether we'd receive the sums required to make the updates viable, on a regular basis.

I agree, first month you might get a reasonable donation........but no way would future months get anywhere near 2K IMHO. Sponsorship of  at least one of them looks a must, as well as looking at inceasing "proper" income via cardroom/advertising etc.

[TightEnd]

"the donations button does not collect enough to cover costs".

Kev as long as Blonde has the same people around it I'm sure they will weather the storm and storms approaching.

The donate button idea is for someone like me or someone who enjoys the community i.e family members following updates of friends loved ones etc that are not poker players or just like the forum because it's a nice place to visit to contribute something.

I think you will get a reasonable amount of incremental income. Every £20 per week you can generate is a £1000
a year towards running costs soon adds up.

Regards

M

Aside from specifically asking for donations for updates the success of which I would have my doubts about, for those who enjoy blonde but don't want to play on line I think this is a perfectly acceptable idea. Frankly, it isn't me you have to convince though!

[TightEnd]

What are the costs of say a 4 day GUKPT update?

Two updaters. None are currently on the staff as we sadly know. We pay £100 per person per day. So thats £800. As was noted much earlier in the thread this is about a third of the rate that the large sites like PokerListings and PokerNews charge(d) for updates. This is only relevant in that we're competing for freelancers for some events. The £100 rate hasn't changed for years and frankly underdoes it.

Food allowance £20 or so per updater per day. They do long shifts over as much as 12 hours and to the best of my knowledge food is not provided by the GUKPT host venue, though it is at DTD, kindly

Hotel. One shared room perhaps at say £60 per night

Travel. Lets say £50 per updater


So totting that up £800 + £160 + £240 +100 so £1,200 or so

Cost for a two day two person DTD-er is £600-700 or so

Over a month on a basic slate of one GUKPT and one DTD we're talking £2,000 or so. To put this in context it exceeds the revenue (net) from our card-room in four of the last six months (though not previously, when revenue was higher). Here we are back to business model, weaknesses of our card-room etc etc


As to a donation button, I see it on a lot of fora but MOSTLY its on forums without associated businesses, thus non-commercial- forums only . If I said no it wouldn't be an issue of pride as such. I am sure we could get round the issue of it going into a big shareholders pot by setting it up to go to an "updates fund". I have my doubts though whether we'd receive the sums required to make the updates viable, on a regular basis.

I agree, first month you might get a reasonable donation........but no way would future months get anywhere near 2K IMHO. Sponsorship of  at least one of them looks a must, as well as looking at inceasing "proper" income via cardroom/advertising etc.

Well as has been indicated things are currently hectic. Nicely hectic

- Discussions to have with dtd
- Discussions with new card-room players, big rakers in some cases
- Advertising deals etc
- Partnership/content deals


Some of which have emerged as we've disturbed the earth publically and new shoots have sprouted in the last 48 hours. I'm more optimistic now than I was that some of this will come to fruition and help us restore finances and achieve what we'd like to do for blonde, its services notably updates/main site and of course our own personal staff finances!

[Longines]

we're talking £2,000 or so. To put this in context it exceeds the revenue (net) from our card-room in four of the last six months

Wow. Didn't realise it pulled in so little. Just out of interest, how much net revenue would blonde make from a player who raked $15,000 a month?

[TightEnd]

we're talking £2,000 or so. To put this in context it exceeds the revenue (net) from our card-room in four of the last six months

Wow. Didn't realise it pulled in so little. Just out of interest, how much net revenue would blonde make from a player who raked $15,000 a month?

THEY EXIST??

er roughly roughly roughly $3,000-$5,000 depending on the deal with the player and the variable costs in the card-room at that time

[Longines]

THEY EXIST??

Yes. I have a friend who is looking to move to ipoker shortly who currently rakes that much on Ladbrokes. Ask Kev to check his PMs from earlier this week.