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It all depends on what you put behind the word 'project' (and there's no judgment in my sentence). For most programmers, a project is something that has alread
by thibaut_barrere 17y ago
It all depends on what you put behind the word 'project' (and there's no judgment in my sentence).
For most programmers, a project is something that has already a decent size, is complex to get out and test on the field.
If you think this way, a "side-project" can only be rare.
On the other hand: a friend of mine started exactly the way Max describes a long while back, and currently runs way more than 400 sites/projects.
He is also doing way more than 12k€ per month.
The thing is 95% of his projects wouldn't even catch the 'regular' (if there's such thing) programmer's interest :)
- tjogin 17y agoIt would be really interesting if you could describe some of these projects briefly.
- thibaut_barrere 17y agoThose I know revolve around affiliation, alternate search engines, porn/erotic stuff, niche technological forums and such topics :) Not by him but in the same kind of idea, here's an example: http://fastpowertools.com/ http://fastpowertools.com/ A while back I know the owner of this site did a few hundreds $ per month. It was really an eye-opener to me :) Of course this requires SEO skills to earn more than a few bucks, that need to be learn on the way. I started a couple of sites like this one, and although I earned a bit of money, I wanted to try sites that are really useful to myself, which I'm focusing on now. I think it's always good to remind myself that between what would look a half-spammy site to a regular programmer, and the typical too complex projects regular programmers would start, there's a sweet spot in the middle.
- aw3c2 17y agoThat site looks like a shady search engine spam site. I could never earn money like that and feel good about myself.
- thibaut_barrere 17y agoWell, it's a fun experiment per se - but for one it's hard to really get past the few bucks stage here. I do understand what you say, that said. My overall feeling is that these kind of sites are not really "changing the world", if I dare. So now I'm trying to solve real issues I have. It's more fun for me!
- jacquesm 17y agoWhat I wouldn't give for a way to filter all sites like that from search engine results ;)
- thibaut_barrere 17y agoI would pay for that as well :) Do you know of projects that achieve that correctly ? I know about custom google search engines with all the big retail stores removed, for instance.
- nitrogen 17y agoIs there a generic webapp (something like OSCommerce) that can automatically create an affiliate store like the one you linked when supplied with a list of item names or URLs?
- thibaut_barrere 17y agoSearch for "affiliate store script" and I think you should find some.
- flog 17y agoThibaut, are they all advertising based? The major pain point for me is payment processing.
- thibaut_barrere 17y agonope: it's really a mix of affiliate/commissions, regular ads and micropayments (allopass).
- axod 17y ago>> "and currently runs way more than 400 sites/projects." I'm guessing they're some sort of auto generated content sites ranking and making money off ads?