How Much Is Internet Angling Worth?

[Elton]

I recently heard of an angling domain name (not a site, just a name), selling for over £20,000.

 

I also often wonder how much the few commercial sites that there are run up in wage bills and whether they make a profit (must take a look at Company House records tomorrow!).

 

So, do you think angling on the internet is worth a lot? If so, to whom? It's very noticeable that none of the major magazines have got a site - a couple tried, but they soon disappeared.

 

One last question:

 

If you could decide who owned this site after me, who would it be and why? What I mean is, would you like it to be a magazine, club, tackleshop, group of anglers, or what? Or does it not really bother you? After all, there are some other good sites out there.

 

No, I haven't had an offer and no, I'm not packing it in just yet. It's just that a few things have made me think, including my forthcoming self-employment and this flipping baby thing that the missus is going to throw into my life in May - the sum of my thoughts is that I won't be doing this until I die of old age (although it could kill me before that!).

 

Let's see if we can discuss the above without slagging anyone off, or landing me in court

 

Tight lines,

 

Elton

[Scott]

The running of a website takes time and money, I guess from the amount of adverts you will have made a few quid but probably not enough to pay all the costs.

 

If you do decide to call it a day then firstly thank you for putting this site together and bringing all these people together. I have learned new things, shared peoples happyness and sadness, had a few arguments and a lot of laughs, made new friends and enjoyed every minute, thank you.

 

I would not blame you and I'm sure most people here wouldnt if you were to sell out and pocket a nice lump of cash, you deserve it for the work you have put in, some people might leave but enough of the regulars would carry on using it to make it worthwhile.

 

But I, as i'm sure others would like to see this site continue as it is so with that in mind I would suggest that if anyone is to run this site then it should be the moderators left to run it when/if you go.

 

Scott.

[Norrie]

Well said Scott, I couldnt have said it better myself. Do we have to start a "Elton please stay coz I'm a lazy bugger " petition.

[Peter Waller]

If I had the know-how and a name like AN then I'd sit tight! Sooner or later the Internet will come of age, and a big buck offer will come from who knows who! Good luck Elton. So long as you don't sell to some R-Soul .

[snotty]

Pleeeeze don't leave us Elton!... is that grovelling enough?

 

I guess the average poster (me) doesn't really think about the effort you put in daily to give us all so much enjoyment and social intercourse with like and not-so-like minded people.

So I'd like to thank you for that Elton.

 

To answer your question, who... I guess it would be nice to think that one or more of the 'mods' would be willing to step in with the necessary wad or even the first(?) web site members buy-out 'cos we wouldn't want things to change much would we? but I guess the best we could hope for would be someone who gets passionately involved, listens to the posters and is flexible and tolerant... sort of like erm you Elton.

[chesters1]

must be worth at least 50p after all it has exclusive chesters1 bullshine on a daily basis

[davidP]

No commercial organisation could run a site like this because it simply wouldn't pay. Why should people pay for content when there are many other sites out there run by enthusiasts for free. That's why the magazine sites caught a cold - unless they're prepared to invest huge wedges of cash for certainly little return in the first few years, and probably little return ever, they can never compete with the enthusiastic 'amateur'.

 

Shop sites can work if they're done cheaply enough and if they offer good prices and are easy to use. They'll nearly always have to be linked to a 'bricks and mortar' site though simply because they have to deal with multiple companies, agents etc and I doubt a start-up internet site could make the kind of order levels that most tackle companies seem to insist on these days.

[Alan Pearce]

Hang on in there Elton, it may contribute towards your pension.

 

Alan.

[monkeyboy]

If I buy a T-shirt will you stay??

PLEASE?

This site is what you made it, if you sell out or whatever. It will never be the same.

Also the people who buy it may charge for memebership which is not a good thing as the price of tackle these days is slightly overpriced and as a 'poor student' with a part time job

Anyway you can see where im coming from

[Elton]

monkeyboy:

If I buy a T-shirt will you stay??

PLEASE?

I think I should have phrased things a bit better.

 

I have no immediate intention of paking things in - far from it. Currently, there is a lot going on here:

 

We are working on a complete redesign of the site. NickInTheNorth is doing this, so please offer your words of encouragement to him

 

Anglers' Net will also be a limited company from May 1st. This has already been established and offers me a bit of personal protection if anything drastic ever happens. i.e. like any business, there are those that reach for the solicitor every time their name is mentioned

 

We're looking at various server options - moving servers is not a trivial job, so I'm making sure that we get it right.

 

We've just written to around 2000 angling businesses to ensure that the details we publish for free here are correct. We have also written to about 1000 fisheries and will continue until all those listed have been contacted. That's quite some investment.

 

I have spoken to a well known sea angler and we are getting some of his previously published articles to put on the site. This is how the coarse fishing section started and I hope to develop the sea and fly fishing sections fully. Any contributions to any section gratefully received

 

Julian is speaking to various companies on a daily basis, hence the banners you see here. It's not an easy task, as many are still unsure about the internet. Until you all start buying a substantial amount of tackle online, that's the way it will remain. Simple fact of business life.

Having said that, I am looking at different ways of making the site self-sufficient and have a vision of developing a sytem that will offer free advertising to businesses of my choice. Why?

A. I'd love to help companies that are dipping their toes into the internet for the first time.

B. I'm sick of us doing all the work and then having certain commercial sites ringing up our advertisers the second their banner appears on our site. Let's see how they cope when busy sites like this start fighting back, using our own tactics. The only reason we haven't moved quickly on this already is that I've been too busy running my mail order giftware company. (By the way, any businesses reading this - it's not going to happen for a while yet, okay?!!).

 

So, the short of it is, I'm not going anywhere yet. What I meant was, I'm not going to be doing this until I'm 65 and, as any site is only ever as good as the people that make up its readership, I wondered what direction you would all like to see it go?

 

Hope that makes sense

 

Elton