

Ask HN: Got a site that could be massively viral then fade -- how do I cash in? - JFitzDela

I just had a light bulb moment on the way home, checked GoDaddy for availability of the name I wanted, and lucked out and bought it.  The site has MASSIVE potential for virality based on an already highly widespread trending topic, but I suspect it's going to very quickly fade from public interest.<p>Given this information, what can I do to cash in?  I doubt anyone is going to be very interested in buying the domain/app (due strictly to the potentially very short topic lifecycle), so then what?<p>I've thought of:<p>- Ads (duh)<p>- Cafepress store, which would be great except it would be best to have an option for user customizable text to print on the clothing (this is going to be a lolcats-alike thing to begin with)<p>- Uh... that's all I've got.<p>Any other thoughts?  If I go with the ad model, is AdSense going to be the best option? Can I really expect a return on a week or two worth of ads?  Do I hope for a buyer and/or a longer lifecycle?<p>Can I expect a return at all on something that fades so quickly (if it does)?  It's going to spike the hell out of my servers, obviously, which is going to cost, and I'm pretty broke.<p>Look forward to any thoughts or feedback at all!<p>- John
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mikerhoads
I have experience with this.

When the whole Conan O'Brien cancelation fiasco was going on, I registered
teamconan.com and teamleno.com because I saw that phrasing in a TMZ poll and
they were still available. My friend and I threw together a Facebook Group and
put the domain on a Tumblr account. Within 12 hours we had 10k+ members in the
FB group and were getting significant search traffic to the site. We were
getting emails from people offering up 50-100 bucks to run a display ad
(static image, not adserved) and we didn't even prompt for it. I only ended
selling 2 of them and we donated the money to the Haiti Earthquake thing. I
definitely could have made a lot more had I been prepared to sell display ads.
Simply putting a link on the site with a contact email for advertisers will
get you plenty of offers if you really are seeing massive viral traffic. Also,
ALWAYS make a facebook page for the site you create. You can really ramp up
virality and pages with a lot of fans can earn money with sponsored statuses
(which is frowned upon heavily by facebook).

Also, for anyone that is interested: A few months afterwards, Conan's lawyer
contacted us and asked to to give them the domain. I had no problem with that
and now it currently directs to his official "Team Coco" site. We still have
the FB group, it has lost about 200k members since its peak but still has 200k
members: <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=242166564197>

~~~
JFitzDela
Excellent thoughts -- I'll plan to include placeholders for simple ad
placements that can be sold directly, and will definitely have contact info in
the footer.

The Facebook page is also a great idea; I'll get it created and try to auto-
post user creations to the page.

Thanks!

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keiferski
Charlie Sheen? It's already been done.

<http://livethesheendream.com/>

If not, that site is filled with good ideas.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That site is in a story on OK Magazine -
[http://www.okmagazine.com/2011/03/charlie-sheen-quotes-
live-...](http://www.okmagazine.com/2011/03/charlie-sheen-quotes-live-the-
sheen-dream-back-up-after-traffic-crash/)

3 other such sites are listed in the comments. I think he missed the boat
already.

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JFitzDela
No question I'm late to the game, but I suppose I'm just banking on the, "it's
a big internet," notion -- thanks for pointing this out, though!

~~~
salemh
Always execution. It CAN beat out the first movers. If you can make this work,
please detail it more in the future.

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minalecs
from how I interpret this you're saying this is all guessing, and you actually
haven't executed anything ? This makes no sense, just do it. Right now you are
worrying about things that may never happen, and is holding you back from
actually getting it done. If you do get this massive traffic, come back here
and personally message me, and we'll figure something out.

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maxbrown
While I agree with the unlikelihood of "The Sure Thing" he claims, I think
he's just trying to be prepared. If it's true that it hypes on a grand scale
but will only last a week or two, I would want to be prepared with my
monetization so to not miss a day of it.

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minalecs
I find it hard to take a viral app and make any kind of significant revenue in
a short time, no example comes to mind. But if this was the case I would
suggest, possibly a compliment iphone app that costs like 99 cents to capture
paying customers of the apple market. This market seems to pay for things like
this , example fart app.

~~~
mikerhoads
Yeah, but unfortunately if it is time sensitive, the approval process required
by the Apple market is a huge hinderance.

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JoachimSchipper
> It's going to spike the hell out of my servers, obviously, which is going to
> cost

Seriously? Just throw it on some decent shared host to start with. E.g.
Dreamhost (no affiliation) offers unlimited everything for $9. Yes,
"unlimited" is rarely unlimited, and you will probably want to migrate to
something better if it takes off - but there's no reason to spend a lot of
money to start with.

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Tycho
t-shirts

c.f. snowpocalypse 2011

~~~
salemh
<http://madebyloren.com/posts/10> his blog

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JFitzDela
The site is now live at <http://sheenme.me> \-- would love feedback!

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imrobert
You could pick a relevant affiliate program (check out Commission Junction)
and promote it.

