Hey!

So this weekend we're running a Sad Tom banner because we tried it once before and it worked well at turning people into supporters.

We've been hovering in the 1,650 supporter range for months now and I'd like to see more forward progress, to 1,800 and beyond.

If the day ever arrives where NG generates a surplus of cash, there would be the question of how it would best be spent. Examples include:

1) Increased monthly prize money
2) Original content development
3) New rev-share system based on total site earnings
4) Additional development projects (TV apps for example)

My goal has been to build a new rev-share system based on total site revenue (replacing our ad-specific system), however it's not worth dedicating the development time to this project until we have a sizeable surplus each month. In the meantime, I think increased monthly prizes would be a good way to distribute limited funds to the content deemed most worthy by the community.

Even with 2,500 supporters NG would still not turn a profit HOWEVER I would be fine with continuing to lose money in the short-term if we're seeing steady growth in other areas like traffic and total supporters.

If we can hit 2,500 supporters in the next three months, for each month that we stay above 2,500 I would like to increase the monthly prize pool to $1,200. It would be distributed like so:

1) $100 each to the top five animations.
2) $100 each to the top five games.
3) $100 bonus to the top ranked animation based on original material.
4) $100 bonus to the top ranked game that is... mobile friendly perhaps?

Our next milestone could be 3,500 supporters, at which point we expand the monthly prize to cover the TEN best games and animations. With 4,500 supporters we could introduce prizes for the five best art and five best audio each month.

We could keep doing it like this until we hit the 10,000 supporter range, at which point we could get serious about building a new rev-sharing and partner system. Will we ever get to 10,000 supporters? It's really up to you guys! I know in my heart there are 10,000 NG fans who can spare $3 a month to support NG, we just haven't managed to reach them yet.

Beyond 10,000 supporters things get really interesting because NG wouldn't be stressing over money and traditional ads too much. If NG ever achieved 100,000 monthly subscribers, that would be $260,000 per month after processing fees. We could cover our expenses + generous monthly prizes + original content development with $60,000 and the rest could be distributed to partners by the rev share system.

We could end up somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 supporters and still be amazing, or we could end up with 200,000+ supporters which would be totally ridiculous. I don't even like to think about the amount of spam content people would be uploading at that point but we wouldn't let accounts like those have partner status.

For now, we'll see where this post and Sad Tom gets us.

I have two big outreach efforts that I've been waiting to make AFTER new user pages launch. One of them is a direct outreach to former supporters who haven't re-upped. The other is a direct outreach to well known artists on NG, not pressuring them to become supporters but instead asking them to update their new user pages and take some time to re-engage with the community. Our user page update includes feed updates that will make it easier to interact with people in-feed, with both blog replies and reactions. On top of all that, we're getting a new site header, to better accommodate user pages and future layout changes.

Once user pages are a wrap, we'll be transitioning private message and forums to the new layout, with a number of modernizations along the way. We have other surprises in the works that will roll out as-ready.

March will be a content-rich month, with the Dragon Ball Z Collab and NG in Space, a special event with new episodes of your favorite space-themed shows! It kicks off March 16th with a new Space James by @TheWeebl and a custom site skin by @LemKuuja, then continues in the following weeks with a new Captain Tardigrade by @ianmichaelmiller and new Starbarians by @HappyHarry!

Thanks for reading all this and I hope you're as optimistic as I am for the future of NG!

Here's that supporter link one more time!

You are so funny Tom

Ohhhhhh! I thought this was a "Soulless Tom" campaign to pay to retrieve his soul from the website!

Whatever can be done to generate more support is always a plus

~X~

You said it that the Sad Tom thing worked well but I'm not sure how well. It kind of reeks of desperation. I can't really say this desperation is all your fault, because a lot of things led up to a point where you now need to ask for as much money as possible for this site to stay afloat. Competitors, changes in technology and the way people consume content, etc. As you may know yourself, because of some stupidity on YouTube's part, now is a good time to continue courting content creators. This is a good time to think and reflect about those things--big and little.

Look at when I signed up: November 21, 2003. As I remember it, this was among the top 1,000 most visited sites at the time. The fall has been mighty and painful, but you're right not to lose hope. I see growth potential here that many people probably don't, but we do need to go over some issues starting at the community level.

Just last night I was banned from the chat for 3 days for "being a dick." I'm an older user and former mod too. Before you or anyone takes this as "whining," that's exactly the kind of mindset that needs to change. It's not that I was a dick. As a matter of fact, I learned nothing except to resent people who don't like what I have to say even if it isn't always warm and pleasant. I learned that it's okay that, as a mod, to provoke vehement reactions while making air horn noises. When someone's not spamming or doxxing, there isn't much of a need to do anything. Allowing the flourishing of chat cliques and for the mods to be participants in them requires decisive action at a higher level.

We simply live in a different world now and to expand your audience and the site's bottom line, you just need to offer what people are looking for, and then people will pay for it without you having to ask. The social media sites we all use regularly ballooned because there was less of an emphasis on policing speech (and when they do, they go about it differently), and if we said something we later regretted, we could delete it. If I later regret writing this post, I won't be able to delete it myself, and will have to go to you or a mod. Really? In 2018?

The outreach efforts, as well as going in the direction of having an app, are all good. Bringing back the store when funds allow it will also help. I once had to go to the ER on while coincidentally wearing an NG shirt and the doctor instantly recognized the shirt saying that this site was (his words, not mine) "the YouTube before YouTube" and that he spent a considerable amount of time on here. I said nothing about who I was on here, but thanks doc. Maybe you'll read this one day, maybe you won't.

Hopefully people support. I'm not one for dishing out money to companies, but Newgrounds has my heart and my wallet.

Love ya NG.

I think Newgrounds is easily worth all the support it can get, and even more than so :)
I was planning on upgrading to another year of supporter status on my fairly-soon-to-arrive birthday, but I happened to win an upgrade that'll probably be implemented soon. That said, I bought the Newgrounds Pin, and I'm loving it! I'll probably make a newspost with some pictures soon.

@TomFulp I know it's quite cheap, but out of curiosty, how much of the proceeds go to NG from the pin?

Hope these efforts will open the supporter flood gates!
Working at an anim studio I always try to bug my co-workers into making a NG account.
Hopefully some day it becomes the place to be for independent artists to post their stuff.

At 2/24/18 06:15 PM, LucidShadowDreamer wrote: @TomFulp I know it's quite cheap, but out of curiosty, how much of the proceeds go to NG from the pin?

We make $4.45 per pin and that goes towards the production costs ($751.00 for 1000 pins) so we paid off costs after 169 pins and have been making $4.45 each since. If my math is right we make $3,699 per 1000 pins made and sold. Have been dedicating more ad space to the pins but we're still working on that first batch.

So, should a bunch of us be using the Sad Tom banner as a signature, or would that turn the BBS into a terrifying place to visit?

At 2/24/18 06:37 PM, Phronemophobia wrote: So, should a bunch of us be using the Sad Tom banner as a signature, or would that turn the BBS into a terrifying place to visit?

That might get too creepy.

At 2/24/18 06:38 PM, TomFulp wrote: That might get too creepy.

Still, it would be a lot of links to the Supporter page... maybe in October.

The funny thing is it looks like a happy @Oney . Good luck Tom, I hope more supporters get behind this. In a perfect world, I wish I could be rich and famous and be one of NG's investors lol.

Amen, brother!
Also, any info as to when new user pages launch? I'm excited for those.

I encourage everyone to stay optimistic about Newgrounds' future, because clearly this site holds incredible talent and no doubt people will be attracted to this site because of the various attributes of NG, such as the extensive forums, all-encompassing content portals, and active and humorous admins who are willing to talk to us. Here's to the future!

So I can't attach this to every post I make?

Oh Tom, I could spend money to become a supporter if I had any.

yo lets have smash bros melee tournaments in philly near the office but with it modded so alien hominid is up in that bitch and then the videos from the tourneys will blow up online cuz we doin mad crazy frame by frame input tech, but technically tom and the office cant know because they would be liable once nintendo gets pissed off about underground melee mods but fuck that bitch shit we out here doin CRAZY 1v1 matches, motha fuckin super hyper speed shit i aint played melee in years but ill pick the controller back up if we can bring a new era of this website poppin'

Dearest Tom.

Besides creating content and interacting with other users, how can We The Users help Newgrounds grow?

If you're not sure, please think on it and let us know. I know there are quite a few of us who would love to help in some way other than/in addition to a supporter subscription.

At 2/24/18 08:39 PM, MissChosenOne wrote: So I can't attach this to every post I make?

Not only can you, I think it is your moral duty to

At 2/24/18 10:35 PM, Malachy wrote:

At 2/24/18 08:39 PM, MissChosenOne wrote: So I can't attach this to every post I make?

Not only can you, I think it is your moral duty to

On it.

I think I feel some supporter artwork tomorrow....

What about yearly subscribers does that help.

My damn supporter status just ran its course a couple days ago. Still I'll be recurring, but I might get a yearly if you finish that NG history page TOM.

10,000 supporters... why not! :D Surely there should be enough. Growth seems slow but steady, though would be nice to see it speed up drastically... still feel like the tone of the 'Support Newgrounds!' page could be mainly to support the content that already exists, and the features you already get. The positive force that this place is. A treasure trove of creative content both old and new, an outlet for aspiring artists, a daily inspiration and an ace of all trades, one of a kind community that kickstarted the whole user-content revolution and has withstood the test of time since the early days of Internet as we know it!

...and then some Extra Features! as a bonus.

Hope the drive works wonders.

At 2/24/18 05:43 PM, GoryBlizzard wrote: If I later regret writing this post, I won't be able to delete it myself, and will have to go to you or a mod. Really? In 2018?

I just want to say if we ever do get this feature I really hope there's also two-factor authentication and/or backup, cause I would hate to lose all my content if someone gets unwanted access to my account. There's a safety measure with submissions now at least, but so far posts and reviews have felt like a safe zone since they're out of user's reach. I see this as a benefit. And shouldn't we strive to make the world such that people think before they speak, not just say whatever comes to their mind, then regret what they said and expect they'll be able to take it back if only they remove it? It shouldn't be that simple to retract your statements IMO. That's not how life works.

I didn't like the change that made comments deletable, even if I do use it sometimes (if I make I typo and realize this after I post - the edit button on the BBS was a useful change in this regard). I see the downsides. Accidentally hitting that little 'delete' link and having something removed when you spent a large amount of time on it too... I'm always thinking I might hit one of those links when I'm just skimming a page some day. Small as they are they're still prominent and easy to click, no safety measure to prevent accidental or unwanted deletion...

I hope the supporter base continues to grow! What you're doing is awesome and I will continue to support Newgrounds.

Regarding some of the big numbers, for a reasonable expectation of that kind of growth I think more would need to be done to incentivize that behavior. Guilt and nostalgia would not be enough, partly because they don't overcome the diffusion of responsibility problem. I think you'd have better luck with more carrots, fewer sticks: designing, emphasizing, and delivering on perks you would get as a supporter rather than a warm fuzzy feeling.

At 2/25/18 02:30 AM, iscrulz wrote: What about yearly subscribers does that help.

Yearly subscriptions are great too, monthly has just been nice for a consistent monthly budget (and it adds up to more over time). 100,000 yearly supporters would be roughly $2,397,500 after processing fees, or $199,791 per month, which would also be amazing.

Also just realized I left out a big factor in fees in my original post, I just been removing 3% but Paypal is actually 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. In this case yearly benefits from having just $0.30 removed, where monthly adds up to $3.6 per year in those extra fees per person. That means 100,000 monthly subscribers would be more in the range of $261,300 per month instead of $290,000, whoops. I'm editing the original post to better reflect that.

I do think we need to raise the amount we ask for - NG is lower than what just about every other website is asking for from supporters / subscribers. I also think it has probably been a mistake to offer a single month option, whereas most websites make you sign up for monthly recurring OR pay an entire year up front. This has come up a number of times but we've left it alone so far.

At 2/24/18 09:52 PM, Zhon wrote: Dearest Tom.

Besides creating content and interacting with other users, how can We The Users help Newgrounds grow?

If you're not sure, please think on it and let us know. I know there are quite a few of us who would love to help in some way other than/in addition to a supporter subscription.

The biggest help is general engagement like you said... Letting people know their content is being seen and their blog posts are being read. The addition of interactions should help a lot with blogs - most of the time I don't have anything to say in response to a blog post but I'd like to leave a reaction to acknowledge I read it. Beyond that, it's always good to spread the word outside of NG!

At 2/25/18 07:10 AM, BenjaminTibbetts wrote: I hope the supporter base continues to grow! What you're doing is awesome and I will continue to support Newgrounds.

Regarding some of the big numbers, for a reasonable expectation of that kind of growth I think more would need to be done to incentivize that behavior. Guilt and nostalgia would not be enough, partly because they don't overcome the diffusion of responsibility problem. I think you'd have better luck with more carrots, fewer sticks: designing, emphasizing, and delivering on perks you would get as a supporter rather than a warm fuzzy feeling.

Agreed. When we launched the Supporter system we wanted to minimize the divide between supporters vs non-paying users but NG won't exist for anyone without supporters so supporters are gonna keep getting more perks.

One thing on my wish list is a dedicated analytics server, so we could stop using Google Analytics and also make detailed analytics available to artists. The more advanced stats could be a great supporter perk and I like the idea of Google not snooping on our pages. If we ever get to the point where we don't need Google Analytics OR third party ads, the NG experience would be completely free of third party cookies and tracking, which is a great goal. Good for privacy AND site performance.

Simple Tom we should do mile stones kind of like kickstarter.

At 2/25/18 08:37 AM, TomFulp wrote:

I do think we need to raise the amount we ask for - NG is lower than what just about every other website is asking for from supporters / subscribers. I also think it has probably been a mistake to offer a single month option, whereas most websites make you sign up for monthly recurring OR pay an entire year up front. This has come up a number of times but we've left it alone so far.

Its almost as if you're not a slime ball who prays on people who don't pay attention to their monthly statements.

Ya need to paywall some of the newer features Tom.. I know.. you HATE THAT.. but that's just how the world works.

Obviously all essential content for viewing would always be free, but the way you personalize your shit could easily be a paid feature, and give supporters who want to contribute more feel they are getting more for that lil extra..

I know, Im not a business man, or an entrepreneur . Im the average Joe. I know what I want , and willing to pay for.

Hell even NINTENDO has finally realized, they need to start charging for online in order to function in that arena properly.

I did my part @TomFulp

• 

  Support Newgrounds

  by DrSevenSeizeMD

  Illustration

  2,266 Views

  (Everyone)