I had some time today, so I started to think about finding a new business idea and found a good one. I am thinking of making a new directory called onemillionandone.com, but this directory will be very different since it will only have one category called directory. My directory will list the one million other useless directories that exists and I will also ask for recip link, to make sure that I will have a million link back to my site. Isn't this a great idea, what do you think?
If you're serious, you better hop to it before someone else thinks it's a great idea and buys the domain and steals your idea.
Anything is good as long as it has a positive cash flow That is the bottom line in business. Are you making money on your sales
I am not too concerned about cash flow and money, after all the best things in life are free like sex, drugs and alcohol. OBS! it does cost money, I was wrong, the cash flow is important. Here is the business plan, It must be at least a million directory out there, so we will charge them only a $1 for listing, that makes a million dollar and since DMOZ people always complaining about multiple submissions, we do the same way and don't send them any confiramtion or give them any answer about their listing and disable the search so they can't find their site and will submit multiple times. this should be good for at least 500-600 thousand more. If you look in directory section, this is a growing market, so it can just get better and better. Isn't this a great idea?
Yeah free drugs and booze sound good to me, do you throw in some dancing girls with that, I always had to pay big money at the club for all that stuff
everything is relative, compare the big money that you paid for dancing girls to the cost of marriage and divorce and all of a sudden the dancing girls are a bargain, almost free. To alcohol! The cause of -- and solution to -- all of life's problems! -- Homer Simpson
It is a great idea but do you think you will be sucessfull with another directory? It can be the "useless directory" that you have talked about if you won't update daily your directory and make it live and organic.
Brilliant idea, gworld. However, it may turn into a headache for you... The first big problem you'll have is defining clear criteria for what constitutes a useless directory. The second is setting up an efficient system for all the directories included in yours when they email you demanding that you delete them from your directory. Or you'll get the usual suspects stealing your directory and posting it in a dozen forums as their own... And then of course you'll have to have a forum attached to the directory so you can let people post questions and then insult them when they do
Minstrel, you under estimate me, I am a businessman and answer to your questions are so simple. 1-what constitutes a useless directory? 99.9% of all directories that never anyone visits, except the webmasters who just go there to add their sites. 2-second is setting up an efficient delete system- thank you, you just doubled the income, I wanted to charge $1 for listing and now I can charge them for delete too, so it doubles the income. 3- posting it in a dozen forums as their own- It is ok, I will tell people my directory is open source. it is good for the image. 4- The forum part is easy too, I am sure if I put ad in RZ, many of DMOZ editors just jump on a chance to insult people in some other forum too, so I will have so many volunteer who insult people that I won't need to do it myself.
I kneel before you as a rank amateur in business plan development, gworld. You seem to have thought of everything... I do fear you are overestimating the ethics of directory thieves, though... One thing, though: Shouldn't that be 100%? Are there ANY directories that people visit to actually find stuff any more?
Ummm... Note to moderators/admin: I think this was posted in General Chat because it was intended as a spoof rather than a serious business proposal... you might want to check that with gworld, the OP...
I don't claim to know everything, so I left 0.01% chance that in the wonderland of Internet, there can be a directory that is actually used.
Actually there are Minstrel....if you're involved in a specific industry you'll probably find that people look for and use industry related directories quite a bit, especially if they're region focused. The wedding industry is one example. Generic "any topic welcome" directories aren't usually that helpful because they don't have enough detail on any one topic. Although I'm pretty sure the recent flood of directories are mostly developers who could really care less about providing quality unique content for visitor traffic (and are thinking more about link building). Of course, I could be wrong.
<serious mode> I agree with you, Dreamshop. There are certainly niche directories which serve that function, usually by providing selected and very specifically targeted information to their visitors. I suppose my PsychLinks site could be considered one of those, although I don't usually refer to it as a "directory" per se but more as "psychology and mental health resources", but in fact it's a categorized and selected and searchable collection of resources, which translates to a niche directory. </serious mode>
That reminds me of "They mostly just come at night. Mostly." -- Aliens, and then later Cartman in South Park. Vote for Minstrel here
Even if some niche directories can be useful, the question is how do you find it in the first place? It has to rank quite well in search engine for you to find it, if you have not heard about it through a friend or other type of advertising.
Because with a niche directory you can optimize for a relatively small and "themed" group of search terms. See the first site in my sig, gworld...