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What is Stack Overflow's business model?

I was curious if the ad support has continued to bring in enough $$$ to support the SO,SF, MSO, and SU websites? This is a user site, but servers and bandwidth costs money. They must be doing ok since the websites continue to grow.

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Yes, but it's a whole lot of work to make that happen... both on the ad side and the site development side.

jjnguy already mentioned that there's three full-time on the development side. You may be surprised to know that there are 4 full-time staff on the ad side... and growing!

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    Why don't you change your Gravatar?
    – Brad Gilbert
    Aug 14, 2009 at 14:39
  • I see you have fixed it already.
    – Brad Gilbert
    Aug 15, 2009 at 14:19
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I also hear that some yacht companies are planning to bring huge sponsorship to the next StackExchange site - for boat programming questions.

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    Are you ever going to let that boat programming question go? It's getting kind of old.
    – Kyle Cronin
    Jul 22, 2009 at 20:02
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    @Kyle - I have a need for the boat-programming tag and site. I program on a boat. It is relevant to me and I intend to get the hosted stack exchange for it. I figure the ads I get from generator companies, boat manufacturers and th elike will pay for the hosting fees.
    – tim
    Jul 22, 2009 at 20:16
  • Have you tried posting your own question? If you have a legitimate need it might go over better than a joke question.
    – Kyle Cronin
    Jul 22, 2009 at 20:18
  • I only used the tag in my own questions - there was a flurry of activity of that use after some rabid editors discovered the tags (which had existed on my questions for over a week without the world ending)
    – tim
    Jul 22, 2009 at 20:33
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    if you really program on a boat, post pictures of you programming on the boat.. preferably holding a "meta.stackoverflow.com" sign..
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jul 23, 2009 at 3:00
  • Nice. The only problem is, the post would get deleted... I guess it can go on a website. Stay tuned.
    – tim
    Jul 23, 2009 at 3:02
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    sure -- add it to your profile! I want a copy of today's newspaper, and the words "meta.stackoverflow.com" printed on that newspaper, though.. :)
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jul 23, 2009 at 3:05
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It's not just ad support: At this moment, there are 84 jobs on the job board. A job posting is 350 bucks for 21 days, so if 80 is average (they have a refund policy), that's $42000 per month (which is probably shared with joelonsoftware, but still).

I'd take a piece of that cake in no time.

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Jeff keeps hiring full time developers, so I assume they are getting by just fine for now at least.

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    Either that or he's become an accomplished bank robber.
    – Hilarious Comedy Pesto
    Jul 22, 2009 at 19:06
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    Hmmm. I just heard on the radio that Iowa is on pace to have a record number of bank robberies this year and I know that Jeff has family in Iowa. I wonder...
    – tvanfosson
    Jul 22, 2009 at 20:05
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    Ha, no one would suspect a high profile developer living in California to be a bank robber...Good cover Jeff!
    – jjnguy
    Jul 22, 2009 at 20:14
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Balpha has the right answer; ad revenue is trivial, job advertisement revenue is essential.

In developing a business plan for my proposed stack exchange, I did some homework on how much ad revenue I could expect. The calculation is outlined well here. For my assumptions, job advertising was essential to cover my costs. Google adsense (and Amazon affiliate) revenue wasn't sufficient.

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  • It's all about the audience, and the SO audience is among the best. Try putting ads in front of the YouTube/FaceBook crowd... good luck making a living off of that.
    – Alex Papadimoulis
    Aug 14, 2009 at 12:55

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