Jamaica- The BookStand Online-it’s Jamaican and we like this idea. You can sell your used textbooks online to other students. You can join to buy or sell used textbooks for free. They’ve monetized the site so far ith google ads, but frankly the data they are collecting is far more valuable.
I think the idea itself is a long time coming and getting out there early and staking claim to a leadership position in this segment is smart.
I see a clear monetization strategy down the line and obvious targets - financial institutions and other companies that want to reach young people. Cutting-edge companies like NCB or Digicel would do well to stake their claim as a sponsor of this site early on.
Now let’s see how fast this idea can be replicated in other Caribbean islands.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:47 am
I’d replicate it in Barbados, but I would like to know how profitable the site is in Jamaica first. Seems like a lot of work for what may not be much of a reward. The way I see it, most hosting companies let you run up to say … 5 or 10 domains, under the same plan (about an average of $150 to $200 US a year). With 5 or 10 sites running adsense, you should be able to generate enough income to pay the hosting fees and make a tidy profit if you get a reasonable amount of traffic to all your sites. The problem I have with these discussions, is that no one ever really sits down and talks profits and expenses. Web administrators almost NEVER state the exact amount of their profits and expenses, and this site (siliconcaribe) is no exception. Although, to be fair, I haven’t posted any financial info. about my site either. It would really be interesting to have an in depth discussion about traffic generation, adsense profits, hosting expenses, etc, with exact figures being divulged.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
[...] wrote an interesting post today on Caribbean students,Turn your textbooks into cashHere’s a quick [...]
October 28th, 2007 at 8:13 pm