Proposal for all forum members

It could be an idea, even though for a while now I have noticed a heavy siege of advertising. Aside from the direct costs related to the server, templates, domain, pure site administration time, etc. ... in fact, it must also be remembered who contributes "in kind," by providing punctual answers to all requests.

A part this, if I am not mistaken, there might already be an entry: "make a contribution," but I don't remember where. Perhaps it is not on this site ... but it would be enough to set up a form with the association's IBAN details

Here is where I had seen it... on my friend Armando's website

http://www.lvbeethoven.it/_Sito/Beethoven-Sostenere-il-Sito.html#Menu

You can propose something like this, right?

Dear Giovanni, I will tell you my thoughts and then Paolo, if he has a different view from mine (we have never compared views on this point), will give his.

When we decided to open this forum, we didn't do it for financial return. There are many ways to make money with a website, and the last of these methods would be opening a forum about the piano but more generally about classical music. If I had wanted to make a site to earn money, I would have opened an e-commerce store or bought a domain hosted on some server in the Cayman Islands and started one of those usual movie streaming blogs.

We wanted to open a window into the world of music in a professional way. There are also those who manage to earn money in this world but: either they work 24/7 and have already established themselves over the years (unfortunately, for work reasons, I can no longer dedicate as much time to the site as I used to, so much so that no videos have been released for a long time... I work from Monday to Saturday and my only day off is Sunday, when I would also like to relax a bit; in short, I too have a life, a girlfriend, friends) or they were among the first, or, again, they peddle arguments and videos that have nothing professional about them (see the classic videos: "How to play Für Elise on the piano", "How to play the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack" and similar), the so-called viral videos.

On the contrary, we are always fighting against "shops that sell smoke," also being aware that site visits will never be those of someone selling viral smoke, and with this, the possibilities are destroyed—I won't say to earn money, but, alas, at least to break even with expenses. I say alas because this was an error in judgment. We believed that by offering a free service, through the registration of professionals in the sector (see Paolo for piano technology, see Frank and all the other composers for composition, see Thallo for musicology etc. etc., excuse me if I don't cite everyone), users would be encouraged to register on our site and we would break even with advertising. Unfortunately, we had not considered that the site is in Italian, we are in Italy, and culture and art here, even more so than in other countries, have numbers that are at historic lows; therefore, economically speaking, we made a "flop," even though we have a product in our hands that we liked and still like today.

Someone made reference to the advertising we put up... To talk about advertising, let's start by saying that there aren't those extremely annoying pop-ups that open by themselves as soon as a user clicks anywhere on the page, so let's say it is very soft. They are Google AdSense banners that cause no annoyance unless explicitly clicked because of interest in the product/service advertised by the banner. Advertising that, in almost a year of activity, will have brought maybe 15 euros in revenue and which I am therefore also thinking of removing. The strategies for earning with advertising are those I referred to earlier. Every user who enters the site and clicks anywhere on the page enables a pop-up. Considering an average of 500/600 clicks per day on our site, calculating an average cost per click of €0.10, we could earn up to 50 euros a day. But all that glitters is not gold... One must also take into account another parameter... By enabling such invasive advertising, the site would die in a very short time and therefore this would nullify years of effort in a few days as people would quickly tire of this pressing advertising and abandon the site; therefore, this idea is absolutely to be discarded. So what can we do? For the moment, nothing, and fortunately monthly costs are not that prohibitive. When we get tired of paying out, it will mean that we will give up on advertising expenses and settle for those who want to reach us spontaneously.

A me interests the image of a group that seems to have been created in a rather selective way. As far as I am concerned, I prefer little but good... In this forum, except for some particular cases, it doesn't seem to me that there have ever been any problems, and fewer problems means less work even for me; in the eyes of others, this is certainly an elite community where many prepared people reside. Personally, on a site where they explain how to play Pirates of the Caribbean with a video, I wouldn't know what I'd be doing there; the problem is that there are fewer and fewer prepared people and more and more fools who want to learn how to play Für Elise with a video; I don't have the nerve to mislead people into thinking one can learn to play the piano online and, in fact, when I have the chance in videos, I always remind them of this point of view, but just to earn a little bit...

spicci c'è gente che è disposta a tutto, anche a mentire, sapendo di mentire... Ecco perché gli altri fanno i soldi e noi no... Per me, francamente, meglio così almeno posso dire di essere in pace con me stesso...

Se proprio volete darci una mano pubblicate il forum su facebook e tutti i vostri social network, invitate nuove persone ad iscriversi e date lustro al sito, chiedendo di condividere anche singoli post che vi hanno appassionato o dove avete trovato argomenti di vostro interesse. In altre parole pubblicizzateci. Se sui social network si creasse un bel giro di condivisioni ed iscrizioni potremmo rinunciare ai costi di pubblicità ed il sito poi costerebbe solo 150/200 euro l'anno invece dei 2000 attuali.

Grazie comunque a tutti per il pensiero carino che avete avuto, ancora una volta posso dire che anche questa è una cartina torna sole che mi fa capire che l'intento di creare un gruppo culturalmente elevato di brava gente è riuscito perfettamente.

Alright Simone, know that I have great esteem for all of you and I will never stop thanking you.

I was also thinking of putting some advertising on my site, counting on about 2,500 visitors/day, but I was wondering if it's worth "dirtying" the site.

Simone's writing confirms to me that it is better to let it go.

Personally speaking, I believe that opening the possibility to contribute financially is never a problem; it has also happened in the past that during a moment of crisis (not economic) the fate of the site was discussed and several forum members emerged willing to lend a hand also in economic terms.

On one hand, I think that if Giovanni or others wanted to make a donation to the association behind piano concerto, no one would be offended; on the other hand, I think it is clearly a choice that only the ownership can make.

Therefore, I defer to the wise decisions of Paolo and Simone, whom I thank for their work.

I agree with much of what Simone wrote and I think that, on average, many similar sites (allowing myself to use the pluralis majestatis) in aspects analogous to ours are either lacking substance or are even a hodgepodge of downloaders.

I am also a bit short on time and, above all, I haven't been very well. Let's just say I'm not in top shape. We all have a real life and, given the virtual landscape, it is already quite something that there at least exists a place where one can engage in dialogues freely without various hypocrisies and sycophancies like Facebook "likes."

As always, good music.