1 (edited by jeffus 2007-06-22 17:12)

Topic: DealMinded.com: PunBB backend for headlines, blogs, forum...

I'm putting the finishing touches on DealMinded.com and wanted to give you guys a chance to knock on it for a while before I release it to the masses.  It uses PunBB with some customization beyond styling (of course),  WordPress templates, and the Tango caching class for PHP.

If you're a bargain hunter, I think you'll find the premise of this site very interesting.  Instead of being scolded for posting deals with affiliate/referral links, you're rewarded.  To make a long story short, after earning $1,000 in about 3 days on my other site getting a meager 1000 clicks a day, I realized that there's a lot of money in posting deals.  However, on other deal sites, you're told not to post affiliate links, because the deal site wants to parse that link and add it's own affiliate information.  That means deal sites are making $1000s-10,000s a day on the deals that users work very hard to find, research, write-up, and post!  And the users get nothing in return other than "rep points".  This isn't right.

If DealMinded could gain some popularity, I would not find it hard to believe that users could make hundreds of dollars, maybe more, a day, just by posting quality deals.

By the way, when I say "deal site", I don't mean posting the same coupons everyone posts just because they are affiliates for jacked-up-prices.com; I mean actual, best-price-anywhere, often-times-unadvertised, sometimes-price-mistaken deals!

One neat thing about the site is that when users post to the site, it automatically generates a customizable blog, in case they want to do more focused advertising; for example, post links and feeds on their MySpace or Facebook pages to their site.  For example, my personal blog is here: http://www.dealminded.com/user/jeff/

If any of you sign up, send me a message and let me know where you heard about the site from - or message me here; I'd be happy to help get you involved, if you need it.

Jeff.

Re: DealMinded.com: PunBB backend for headlines, blogs, forum...

i was this >| |< close to reporting this post... then i read it. nice integration.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more

3 (edited by jeffus 2007-06-22 17:11)

Re: DealMinded.com: PunBB backend for headlines, blogs, forum...

Dr.Jeckyl wrote:

i was this >| |< close to reporting this post... then i read it. nice integration.

Oh yeah.  It's all PunBB!  The feeds on the front page, the featured deals/blogs, the forum (of course), the blogs....

I think I'll change the title.  It does seem spammy, doesn't it?

UPDATE: title changed.

Re: DealMinded.com: PunBB backend for headlines, blogs, forum...

The punbb integration is impressive.

But I have a general suggestion: why don't you have some of the usual niceties for ecommerce sites like:

(a) an About page that tells people more about the business, including its corporate ownership (if applicable)
(b) provide ANY contact information on the site, even a valid email address anywhere or
(c) have a privacy policy on site. Etc

Or indeed have anything on site that suggests you are reputable in any way.

And to top it all off, you registered the domain via a domains by proxy service.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I wouldn't (couldn't) trust you at all as a ecommerce partner, because you provide none of the above.

You don't need to cloak things like that. It inspires suspicion and distrust.

I suggest that before you go live, you get a little bit more transparent.

Re: DealMinded.com: PunBB backend for headlines, blogs, forum...

sirena wrote:

The punbb integration is impressive.

But I have a general suggestion: why don't you have some of the usual niceties for ecommerce sites like:

(a) an About page that tells people more about the business, including its corporate ownership (if applicable)
(b) provide ANY contact information on the site, even a valid email address anywhere or
(c) have a privacy policy on site. Etc

Or indeed have anything on site that suggests you are reputable in any way.

And to top it all off, you registered the domain via a domains by proxy service.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I wouldn't (couldn't) trust you at all as a ecommerce partner, because you provide none of the above.

You don't need to cloak things like that. It inspires suspicion and distrust.

I suggest that before you go live, you get a little bit more transparent.

Wonderful suggestions.  An about page is coming.  Contact information should be there - hmm. Even if it is, it's not in a good place.  Privacy policy is also coming.

One good thing about my site is that you don't have to trust me as an ecommerce partner.  You partner with merchants, and deal with them directly (via affiliate programs). 

Domains by proxy: that's the privacy thing that GoDaddy sells.  Is that really a big deal?  I just hate getting snail mail for domain services.  tongue