Is there any sort of ETA?
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Think of it this way. If Fog Creek said, "today you all start paying," then how many sites would just close down? I'm thinking about 95%. The longer Fog Creek waits, the higher the number of sites, and the higher the number of sites that will have proven they can be sustainable. So there's some optimum time at which the expected future value of the sites that would close down is no longer as much as the amount they're losing by putting off receiving payments every day. I'll bet the expected revenue from a site over it's lifetime has to be between $5000 and $10,000 (that's average, not max). Let's say it's $5k profit per marginal site to be conservative. By marginal I mean a site that's on the borderline between paying the $130/month or just closing it. Let's say you have 100 definite sites and 10 marginal sites. So maybe if you called the beta over now, you'd get 105 signups. That means you're missing out on approximately $500 per day. If within 10 days you think you can increase that to 106 signups, then you broke even. Jonathan Lyon over at stackexchangesites.com is working on a system of ratings and stats that can rank sites by the number of questions. I you watch that list, you can probably start to get a sense of which sites are definite, and which ones are marginal. (You also have to take into account ones that didn't register there). Pick some arbitrary amount of activity, and you will be able to figure out how many sites are already above that threshold vs. how many sites are moving over that threshold every week. My theory is they'll call the beta over before that number reaches 100:1. |
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For my own edification, I am assuming the beta will close at the end of November which means I need to be ready to start paying the piper in January 2010 (They've stated that beta sites will enter either a 30 or 45 day trial period at the close of the beta). If they run the beta longer, all the better. |
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There is no ETA, but I personally think we have at least till the end of the year. There is a lot of development left to be done to make this thing mainstream. And the Fog Creek guys seem to be the sort that want to get it right the first time. |
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