Shirts will cost $25. That price includes any applicable tax and shipping. 2XL and 3XL will be $3 more because we get charged more for the shirt. If you want me to order a shirt for you please let me know the sizes and quantities you'll need in the comments below. This is a handshake commitment to buy, so please don't ask me to order you a shirt unless you 100% plan on buying one.
If 50+ of you are interested these will go ahead and get printed. I've beat the drum enough, but y'all buying shirts and our merchandise is what keeps TKP free.
Hope you all like the design and thank you for supporting TKP!
Forums:
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Comments
You think it's cool if I wear this on press row or nah?
Brn Mrcln should get a special Bzzktbll edition
Dammit. Just imagine all the missing vowels as umlaut characters
Brïän Märcölïnï?
Edit: Huh, no kidding, guess it strips out those characters for some reason?
Double edit: there we go! and BÜZZKËTBÄLL for good measure.
Brïän Märcölïnï
Brïän Märcölïnï
EDIT: Damn, beat me by a few seconds. Cursed HTML slowing my typing...
OK, that's something I had to add into the CMS. Basically people would embed Tweets from recruits that would include characters not supported by the database's character set which would break things. The result, the algorithm got a little greedy and only accepts extended ASCII.
Yeah that's exactly what I thought it was.
What is it they say? If you have to ask, you already know the answer?
Someone made t-shirts after the football team going 2-0 and that didn't go so well.
But we beat Liberty. Mission Accomplished.
in for one XL
Yay, someone who actually read the original post!
sign me up for two Ls
I'd buy one Joe, XL.
Joe, how did you get this cleared with VT? Sign me up for a L as well.
I don't see any infringement going on unless Tech has already claimed "Buzzketball"
I didn't. As far as I know there's no need to as we aren't using any sort of licensed marks or trademarks.
I'd take a L
2 L's please
I'll take a XL
One Large por favor.
I'll break the streak of all you tall people - my JC-Coleman-esque stature is in for a Small.
For some reason I'm taken aback by this
he's obviously compensating for his short stature with his turkey leg count./s
In for a Medium
Looks good! I'm in for 1 Large and 1 small. Thank you.
1 Med.
I'm in for 2 L's
In for a L
One Large Please
I'll take a medium. Thanks, Joe, they look great!
I know it's in reference to T-shirt sizes, but all these "L"s are giving me a complex.
"I'll take an L"
NO! I WANT THE 'W' DARN IT!
So did you want a shirt, or no?
Are y'all just not interested in these or what? Thought we could easily get 100 people who would want one.
The design is sweet. Just not big on basketball. In my case, anyway
Although I may walk over to the Bryce Jordan Center on December 3rd...
How many shirts were sold in the other designs? HorseOnATreadmill, TheKeyPlay, DecadeOfDominance?
To be honest, not as many as I thought, which has made me reevaluate a lot of things with regards to the website and our business model.
I own a HoaT and a DoD t-shirt. They are staples of my wardrobe. I love this new design too. I am sad that they haven't sold better.
You know I've been curious about this. This is the first community I've integrated into online and I've never really known what it is that makes a web-based publication successful and/or profitable.
I've heard about ads, know that Google and Facebook are raking in cash from their advertising revenue streams, but for a smaller community like ours, I've often wondered how to make money with this model and how much money is made. I know TKP has been selling merchandise as well as taking donations, but I'm curious about whether there are any novel ways to develop the business.
TKP makes money from a combination of ads, sponsorships (see the First Down Sports Bar & Grill), merchandise sales and donations. There are a few different business models that fit an online community like TKP. There's a traditional premium model like TSL offers, i.e. you pay for the goods. There's a freemium model in which some basic features are free, but the more advanced ones cost money. Then there's the NPR model which a couple of times a year does a bit of in-your-face advertising to explain that they need donations to keep things running well.
I had hoped the NPR model would work for TKP, i.e. people would realize it was a place they like and donate once or twice a year (like yourself). In total thus far we have had about 50 people donate around $1,500. I'm extremely grateful for that, but 81,000 unique people have visited over the last month, there are over 4,000 registered users and over the last 24 hours over 500 registered users have logged in and have been active.
The most conservative estimate is to say the 500 registered users active over the last 24 hours are the "core TKPers". In that case, only 10% of the core user base donated. However, the 1% rule says that 99% of users lurk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_%28Internet_culture%29) which would mean .01% of readers donated. Either way, I thought we'd bring in more cash and sell more stuff based on those numbers.
TKP's time investment this season became that of a second job for me. 1) That's great because it means the website is growing and has become extremely successful. 2) There aren't enough hours in the day for me to sanely do two jobs. 3) I can't quit my job to make TKP a thing, because right now TKP doesn't have a successful business model.
Basically, I need to do some real thinking this offseason.
Joe, it takes time to implement a business model. You can't just switch in the offseason and expect a new policy to immediately make money
In all seriousness, I appreciate all you do for the community. I'll send more appreciation when I get home tonight, I think.
Do you think a fundraising post at the end of the season would help? Like, "I hope you enjoyed ask the articles you read this season, please consider donating to keep us up and running?" In my opinion, and this is your design call, but it seems like the money side of operations could be more publicized outside of merchandise sales
Bwahahaha! Is this a backhand reference to the other threads running hot right now?
Joe, Have you considered retiring because you still haven't won a national championship in blogging?
Maybe we should give him another year or two just to see if he can pull in some registered members with some stars next to their names.
You guys are killing it. If we can monetize snarkiness, joe will be backstroking like Scrooge McDuck
Or just convert my turkey legs to bitcoin. That's got to be worth...something.
Let's not forget the new class he added (Alex, Mark, and Jeff) that are still gaining experience. I've heard he's been busy on the recruiting trail and think that should buy him another year or two as well.
Thanks for the reply. I can't say I have any spectacular ideas on how to develop the business, but I'm more than game for lending a hand if there's anything I can do. I'm considering this the start of letting the idea of revenue generation simmer for a bit.
Consider me thinking as well.
Let's all just think long and hard about how we can help Joe. First and foremost is this:
Like many problems, This problem can be solved by throwing money at it. That being said, it's a little too simple a solution, seeing as the problem is no one is throwing their money at Joe.
So maybe we need to make it clearer why we should throw money at Joe.
Let's start by assuming that if we don't throw money at Joe, Joe will go away. (A pretty valid assumption as he has to put a lot of time into making sure that we are entertained and happy). So let's consider what Joe's services are and what they are worth to us.
Now think. If we can't get money into Joe's wallet, he will have to prioritize his real job, his real family, and his real life over the sandbox for his internet friends. We would lose all of the things that TKP provides us. So please. If you don't own any TKP swag. Buy some TKP swag.
Joe's a real nice guy, and he's done so much of this because he loves VT football and wants a place for likeminded people. If you don't do it for him, do it for yourself. The internet is a better blace for TKP.
I hate to say it, but Joe might have to open his son's recruitment up to a less noble program. When money gets tight, sometimes tough decisions have to be made and a decent bagman would pay good money for young talent with extensive gorilla film study
I HAVE FIGURED IT OUT
question, joe:
as far as ad revenue goes... do you get paid per TKP page view? per actual click on the displayed ad? or a combination of the two?
edit: shameless bump because i'm curious about this
Yes, actually, this matters. I have AdBlock on, and if that hurts you, I'll turn it off for this domain.
If click-through on ads matter, then I'm not going to really do much with that, but if, say Amazon ads where a click through leads to a store purchase, then I have an idea:
We all know Amazon ads show you things you've been searching for recently. So how about identifying the thing you want through lots of Amazon use, but don't buy it yet. Then browse TKP until an Amazon ad for your desired item shows up on this site, click through and purchase it with the originating ad connection coming through TKP. That is, if and only if the value of an ad to this site is increased by frequent click throughs to completed store orders.
i hadn't even considered this. if it is indeed harming the TKP cash flow, us ad block users should be able to do this. it's not like the ads are overly intrusive or *gasps* pop ups.
I was waiting to show the design to my fiancee before committing to a number..we've both been so busy that I haven't had an opportunity to ask if she'd want one
I also wanted to get a pair of pint glasses but just haven't gotten around to it..
I'll take a large
I'll take a Large...
I never posted my interest in these shirts. How embarassing. 1 small.
1 XXL Please!
large me, brah!