I told them that this magazine probably makes about RMB1,000,000 a year.  That got their attention and they asked if I could do it on my own.  I started telling them about printing, which is probably RMB2 per copy, the staff needed, and fact that the magazine should probably be an emag.

They are still interested in we are in the midst of thinking this over.  My idea would be to make about a forty page editorial and journalistic magazine.  We would launch it at the same time as our new website.  The website would have all the listings and maps and relevant info on it.  And I will discuss the Clickboards option with them.

What I want is to have all the information on the website able to be sent to your phone.  So if you are looking at a listing or a coupon, you can send it to your mobile.  So in a sense we would be launching three things at once: a website, a magazine, and a mobile application.

The mobile application would be created by Alvin from mGuanxi, this group I am now in contact with would create the website, and I would create the magazine.

I would also be responsible for bringing all the advertising clients from Jin and Tianjinexpats to the new magazine lineup.  I want to call the magazine and website ‘The Grind’,  but I’m sure I will think of something better.  Selling advertising in the beginning is going to be hard and cheap.  But I think I could get people to sign contracts that they would start at a base pay and then month after month the price would go up 5% until the retail price has been met.  However, with the whole operation based on advertising sales based on a very infantile start-up, things are shaky.

So let’s see.  I want to do this, thing is I will probably have to support myself till there is actual revenue.  Hopefully the others feel the same way.  Maybe my old professor Shafa could help out because he keeps telling me I should buy Jin Magazine, where I currently work.

Clickboards.net is currently under construction. Coupons will be able to be collected from the site and around the Internet using the Clickboards and sent to users coupon feed on Clickboards.net.

Coupons in users feed can be redeemed and verified at the point of sale for the records of the vendor and then be expired from the users feed.

Print and other media can use mobile device to collect coupons and send them to users feed to later be redeemed again using their mobile device.

Right now the mobile number and service is going to cost me RMB5000 a month.  The set up for the application to be used with the website will cost me RMB10000 a month for development.  The initial cost for development is water under the bridge and probably won’t be recouped for maybe a year.  I do believe I can sustain the site with no losses making RMB5000 a month.  Charging advertisers RMB1 a click or maybe RMB3 per acquisition of the coupons, that would mean I need 1500 coupons collected each month.  So if most people collect at least three coupons I would need 500 unique visitors to my site.  I believe that that number is attainable if I promote myself well and people see the relevance of the coupons.  Either it will become sustainable or die a quick death.

Alvin wrote me, “Quickly scanned your materials, but didn’t have time to fully dig in and digest all the materials. Would be helpful if you just sent me 5 slides telling me what you are proposing, how we could help each other and the benefits/cists to each side.”

The last part got me thinking, ‘the benefits to each side.’  My current thinking has been very one sided.  I wanted him to hire me and support me as I developed and integrated Clickboards into his platform.  But what do I get out of it? A salary and advertising shares?  Well that is not exactly a trade.  I mean I have to do business with the guy and show there is a future with my involvement and provide some measure of growth for his products.

So it struck me.  I can approach Alvin saying that I want to add a Clickboard portal to your website.  I could explain the benefits to him and how this will help spur his current business.  But here is where the real opportunity comes in.  The Clickboard portal can be added to any community site whether it be local, national, or global.  People can manage their Clickboards at any and everyone of these portals no matter which website they are on.  Granted each Clickboard portal will be tailored to the site that it is on and the management of the coupons will be more in line with the site they are on, but the access to all their coupons from Clickboards across the Internet is universal.  And this will be key to Alvin.

Any and all Clickbaords can be redeemed using Alvin’s mGuanxi mobile media application.  So now I am not stuck to supporting one website but able to grow the Clickboard portal across the web while it is hosted by other people’s websites, now all of them will be integrated for the use of one easy to use phone application, produced and manned by Alvin.

Now I just have to come up with those five slides.

Newsletter

With the advancement of our Newsletter we can now incorporate more into this giving more reviews and news that we cannot otherwise in the magazine.  This also allows us to concentrate more on giving deeper information in the magazine that we cannot otherwise in the Newsletter.

The future of the Newsletter is to provide quick promotions to our clients as well as encourage them to interact with the magazine.  For example a current project I am working on is to have Newsletter recipients to write reviews for our Website and to promote our Survey and Subscriptions.  Rewards will be given in the form of Coupons for their participation.

Coupons

In the next six months it will become fairly important to collect Coupons and Gift items that we can give away to stimulate activity on the Website and Magazine.  The Magazine will act as the initial stimulus to any promotions we want to promote.  For example at the end of the summer there will be a party (probably at the Sheraton) where we will give away the prizes for the writing and photography contest currently underway.  Prizes have been sponsored by Hyatt Hotel Jing Jin City.

Coupons can also be used to stimulate activity on the Website.  Daily, weekly, and monthly prizes can be given away for the most involved.  Other contests we can have include tickets for concerts, dinners for special occasions at hotels, drinks at bars for special events, DVDs and CDs for new releases, talent contest prizes, best weekly news about the foreign community, and more; all of this will be funded by the Magazine promoting these reward programs for the various venues.

Radio

We will begin working with the local radio stations that have English hours.  We will invite the people in our focus stories to come to the radio with us where we will interview them on the air.  If there is a band that we focus on in the Magazine we will invite them to play.  The Radio also allows us to sell advertising on our show time and to help promote our sponsors and contests.

Website (jin-emag.com)

The Website’s main new focus will be to stream the Radio programs that we create.  Again we can sell advertising before and after the streaming of the shows.  We will modify the website to be a true emagazine and we also need to change the name to jin-emag.com because Tianjinexpats.com has bought jinmagazine.com and this redirects people to their website.

Also using a new service I have found we can sell advertising on other websites for our sponsors that will drive them to our website.  We will promote our sponsors through local advertising on major Internet sites that are frequented by foreigners.  So our Website alone does not limit us to the amount of web advertising we can supply.

JIN MEDIA
JIN Goal
To create interactivity in the community

JIN Card

In the next year we want to work towards making the JIN Card.  This will allow users to redeem any promotions that they hear on the Radio, see in the Magazine, or browse on our Website or the promotions we display through other local online media outlets.  The discounts will be easy to redeem and collect and I want to just bring this up at this point.  The JIN Card will be unlike other cards that only get you standard discounts like 10-20% at participating vendors.  Actually discounts can be quite varying depending on product and time the clients want to put something on special.

As I have recently read, people do respond quite heavily to numbers in the discounts rather than flat rates.  This is a promising market and I believe with the combination of these five factors we can put much greater value into the Newsletter, Magazine, and Website, as well as our Radio portal on the Website.

This of course would include my Clickboards especially with the coupons and the redemption process through the Website and using the JIN Card.

My friend Zhang Kai has his own discount website, and it takes care of basically half of all the functions I need done.  He already has a phone number that texts back the discounts you find on his website.

He wants to take my idea, I can tell.  I sent him my PowerPoint presentation, which is available on this website on the Presentation page.  Again, as long as I talked to him, he can’t sell it.  It is a sale.  The only reason I can sell it is becuase I have complete confidence in this product.  Even if he destroys it and sells it to clients, I could still develop this on my own and sell it for what it is worth.

So why does he want to take it from me when he is going to widdle it down to nothing and leave me with a long road ahead of me? Just because?  We are the oldest friends here in China.  Do I need this from him, No.  Is he going to do it, probably not.  Does he need me, yes!  Will he take me, I don’t know.

With over half the process completed, and him not making any money with his discount website, there is only reason to believe that he could use me.  But hiring a foreigner, even the best of friends is a big deal.  I have very low expectations in salary, but I have very high expectations in my product.  Without me, even the most advanced copy cat in the whole of China will not be able to make this work.  Even if the product is under-minded by the worst of reproductions, I can still make it prevail.

I know there will be competition, and I know there will be people that copy me.  There is no way to protect myself.  Everything is so basic that patents cannot apply.  So the only way for success is success.  And that is what I can do.  Tell me the problems, discourage me, it is nothing that has not been said before or anything that does not apply to other businesses.  So why should it put a hamper on my business, there is none.  This is Web3.0  and there is nothing to stop it.

I need to do more research but sounds like a plan to go after.

如今的网站是极为有限的。唯一用于导航的因素是’点击’ 。但是我想要更多。网站应该是像我电脑的桌面一样多层面的。其实在一个网站上有许多事情可以做。有时当我想继续浏览下一页然后再回来更新时，却被困在上一页的更新中。目前这是一个会花费很长时间的导航路径，仅仅针对我鼠标所点击的方向一项项的进行。甚至不在网站上进行点击动作，而只是划动鼠标到你想看的地方这一功能也是有限制的。我希望我的网站是集我的桌面我的浏览器于一身。我知道大的网站可能会发现这更有吸引力，我知道您也可以只在新标签或窗口中打开新的链接 ，但局限于单一点击仍然会限制着我要进行的一连串的动作。我想要多种路径和多种活动持续在一个网站上。这是我的新任务。我猜想这意味着把您的网站分割成不同的层次和章节，每一个能够独立思考其他的而不总是把我转到另一个新的窗口或网页。很多的工具简单到足以在小范围内出现，他们甚至应该能在这些窗口完成所做的动作后消失。并且已完成的动作应该在其后更新我窗口内的其他结构。如今，这将成为一个交互式网站。

http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/alibaba/100087108-1-alibaba-group-launches-online-advertising.html

I am trying to do some research on this site but it is all in Chinese.  This platform seems almost lock and key to my service.  Using their platform advertisers both large and small could place Clickboards all across the Internet connecting them to my site.  I would like to see one day Alimama selling my Clickboards.  All the basic fees stay in place and I can actually give Alimama an added benefit of more information from the placement of their ads, giving publishers and advertisers more information about the effectiveness of their ads.  And remember, Alimama can sell Clickboards without me, however they could offer my services at Clickboards.net as a value added model for advertisers and their promotional offers.  Alimama is not a Social Utility, something I believe their local advertisers would find attractive.  Alimama, I want on board.

Now I am not arguing that I feel free to give away information and that I am not scared that someone will be able to access and use information to stalk me.  Rather I am discussing what privacy is.

Privacy is actually a method of control.  When people built motes around their castles, it wasn’t really to be private, it was to control who could get in.  Thus privacy on the Internet is the ability to control who can see you.

But unlike the mote, these days privacy and control must be a two way street.  But there is no loss here.  Actually providing advertisers with more information allows them to provide you with more information.  And this is not a battle to kill the advertiser, or the Internet, or all those who sell something, rather it is the battle for optimizing mutual interest.  We all lead simple lives and actually think our buying habits are rather simple too.  So why do we need to see all this advertising?  Well the fact is we don’t.  But we do need to see the advertising that is relevant to us, and the only way to do that is to provide information that matters.

I think if I was tracked for one month to see what my buying habits were, thus giving away my privacy and control, the advertising that I received would be far less.  So how many cannibals are going to cross over my mote and climb the walls to get into my castle when all I’ve got inside is my work and my home cooked meal (although they might want to eat that)?

Yes this title is in fact true.  But in reality don’t you always feel the more you give the less you receive?  By this I mean the more you let people know about you the harder it is for them to target you.  You know how hard it is to buy your best friend a birthday gift.  I think this could be true with advertising too.  You can actually develop more control and more privacy by giving away more of yourself.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Privacychoice Stops Advertisers from Profiling You (lifehacker.com)
• Congressman, privacy groups challenge FTC Web-ad policy (news.cnet.com)
• FTC warns of “day of reckoning” for online advertisers (arstechnica.com)

So here is where you tickle the fancy of the advertiser.  Take a magazine subscription.  That magazine has their name on it right.  Well it also has a bar code that was printed on it, and that bar code also comes with an address.  If this person told Clickboards.net that they were subscribing to this magazine, then all the ads in that magazine could be drawn from their profile.  Then an individualized magazine would be sent to them.  Not one with just a bar code but one with all the ads in it tailored just for them.

What does this mean for the magazine?  In the same place they used to sell one ad, now they sell five or ten.  Ad prices go down and revenue goes up.