In no particular order, as they occur to me, and not intended to be a master list:
- Is this "just for us" (us, our people, their people, *their* people, etc) or a general LJ replacement? (Closed vs open)
- Why is it any different/better to the other LJ spinoffs?
- Who pays? Is it formally not-for-profit? Will it pay salaries for people doing it full-time?
- Who manages the infrastructure? Something like this can't be run out of a spare desktop in somebody's study. You need backups, disaster recovery, ability to scale & grow, service level agreements for hardware, comms, power, etc. That needs dedicated premises and dedicated staff.
- Does it *replace* LJ activity? Would people want to have both journals be active? Could they? What about migrating existing journals?
- Intended size? 1000 accounts? 1 million?
There are bound to be more, but basically this isn't a geek side-project or hobby. Unless you're talking a private & closed service (our people, their people, etc), limited to 1000 accounts or so, you are talking about a tech startup company, and you need to ask (and answer) all of the questions you'd be asking for founding a new company. (Not a small business. A new company, with assets.)
Because what's happened to LJ could potentially happen to this "EJ" you're creating - as in, it becomes successful and you can no longer keep up with demand unless you find a way to generate revenue in order to pay people to actually work on the project as opposed to doing it for free in their spare time.
Better to address the "business" side of things right from the get-go.
- Is this "just for us" (us, our people, their people, *their* people, etc) or a general LJ replacement? (Closed vs open)
- Why is it any different/better to the other LJ spinoffs?
- Who pays? Is it formally not-for-profit? Will it pay salaries for people doing it full-time?
- Who manages the infrastructure? Something like this can't be run out of a spare desktop in somebody's study. You need backups, disaster recovery, ability to scale & grow, service level agreements for hardware, comms, power, etc. That needs dedicated premises and dedicated staff.
- Does it *replace* LJ activity? Would people want to have both journals be active? Could they? What about migrating existing journals?
- Intended size? 1000 accounts? 1 million?
There are bound to be more, but basically this isn't a geek side-project or hobby. Unless you're talking a private & closed service (our people, their people, etc), limited to 1000 accounts or so, you are talking about a tech startup company, and you need to ask (and answer) all of the questions you'd be asking for founding a new company. (Not a small business. A new company, with assets.)
Reply
Because what's happened to LJ could potentially happen to this "EJ" you're creating - as in, it becomes successful and you can no longer keep up with demand unless you find a way to generate revenue in order to pay people to actually work on the project as opposed to doing it for free in their spare time.
Better to address the "business" side of things right from the get-go.
Reply
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