Thread: Automated Website Idea

Interesting idea.

A couple of questions (not meant to be discouraging...just a few things to think about):
1) How will this be different from something like Yahoo! News or MSN News? I believe they're all fed from other news sources with some content of their own mixed in.
2) Will the news stories be automatically searched for by a created program and added to your site, or will they be submitted by users like w/Digg?
3) Even if you're just considering the idea, I'd grab the domain while you can (as I mentioned before).

Good luck. Keep us posted. Rep+++ for posting and sharing the idea!

yeap this is a great idea and I too have looked at this, infact there are some very successful versions around. Check out http://www.newsvine.com/

you are right, a fair chunk of a successful site is the domain name - go grab it, and get it now, I mean don't finish reading this go, get it now ... have you got it yet? Now .. www.godaddy.com get it .. now ... I'll wait till you get back

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back yet? Right .. lets carry on.

I built a test site a while ago that used a small script to fetch & read RSS from popular news sources. This then put these posts in to categories and published this as a blog. No I didn't have permission. What I discovered later was that while sites publish RSS feeds so you can consume their content using any medium you like, you can't take and republish their content.

So, yes you would need to source permission. The hard thing you might find is that many of these sites are not interested in sharing their news to allow you to profit. They might share the topics, or a snippet of the story - meaning your visitors will be forced to change sites to finish consuming the story.

Making money from it:
This is not easy, I'm slowly starting to put down some of my tips and stuff on my blog to help folks like yourself get into this game. I've been in this industry for 14 years and still learning to make $ from it.

AdSense, an advertising program run by Google, will put text based advertising on your site. Google read your site and learn the context, and serve text adverts to your site based on the content.

TextLinkAds, is an inline advertising solution. this system can read your content and sell links from within your content.

AdSense is CPC (cost per click), meaning you get paid (generally) for every click on the advert. TextLinkAds sell slots on your site on a monthly basis regardless of number of clicks or impressions (times the advert was shown).

My forums at it's height made $300 a month from Google AdSense and we were one of the first forums using AdSense - sadly we generally made $150 a month - hence I'm not retired.

Okay, now back to the site. If you are in a niche area you stand to make a little more traction and it is easier to get noticed. It is of course harder to drive traffic, because your niche and not a lot of traffic heads that way.

You also have to becareful when it comes to SEO (search engine optimisation), see Google for example will read the content on News Site A then your site (where you got the same news from News Site A) - if Google deems this to be duplicate content - they can and will penalise you. Meaning your site drops down in Google's ranking and less people find you. There are ways around this, by presenting the story differently and such like (another topic) ... but taking content from one place and representing it in another can lead to negatives in Google.

Right, now if I haven't scared you off the idea, GOOD. I firmly believe the idea has merit. I'd be happy to talk to you more about what I did, what happened, and where I think it could be made better. I'm sure there are others here who might be able to help with where to source the content from, but yes, after all my long rambling here, I do think what you are saying can be done!

Well it's only 9pm here in NZ Thanks for the Rep + ... I gave you one for your post too, thought it was a great thread starter.

Digg btw is a place people can vote on news stories to either promote or sink them.

Niche sites can work well, and if you are able to get that domain (you have ordered it already??) you could well be in for a great site.

Local area ey? As in Local Search? I'm currently involved in local search & think a news site complimented by local information/business etc could work very well.

Thanks for the rep, Andy. And yeah...I should be asleep. It's 3AM here, and I have a basketball game in 12 hours. I'll still drop 35, though; don't worry!

Back to your idea...so do you plan on specializing in local news stories, or just concentrating on niche markets? If you go with local markets, you could try the Craigslist approach and divide the sites into regional subdomains (Idk it that's the correct termonology).

Definitely an idea with some merit, though. If you do decide to cater to the smaller, local newspapers, they'd probably be more open to sharing their content with you. With a smaller budget, they'll likely be willing to explore more unique options to drive traffic to their site. If they read an article they like, as long as it's sourced back to them, they could gain a new regular reader. They'd probably be more desperate for exposure than a site like ESPN.com or CNN.com.

I am product development manager for the leading local search company for New Zealand. We have the largest business directory in NZ, the most popular Mapping website and a few other things under our belt, infact we are about to dethrone the incumbent Yellow Pages as the number one Business Directory website.

We are working on a lot of ideas to grow local search & hyper-local (which strange as it seems is small region based local search). We also work with Google to provide business data for their Google Local (maps)

Great, sounds like you are really onto something (still do heaps more research)...did you get that domain??

Check with local papers - you might find that most are owned by the big boys. The company I work for is owned by a larger media company, we own some big papers, we own a lot of small papers. We own them, and we have trouble getting them to share data with us *sigh*

However often outside companies often can get access to stuff we can't he he silly corporates. My advice, get your domain, set up Google Apps on it (so you can have great email etc) and start sending emails out & get some solid answers as to if people will share with you

Originally Posted by Merkin Man

BTW, Ryan, why the depressed mood icon???

I was thinking the same thing!

Originally Posted by Merkin Man

Not yet. But I will have it soon. I want a hosting company that can be more than just a hosting company for me. I think GoDaddy might be too big for me. I'm doing some research into what company I should go with.

We are your #1 choice!!! We have been a board sponsor for months, and we have tons of happy clients on this forum!

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If you have any questions you can email me directly at tom@aptohosting.com or call me at 1-866-404-9090.

Thanks,
Tom C.
www.aptohosting.com

Originally Posted by Merkin Man

BTW, Ryan, why the depressed mood icon???

It was from the end of last week. I had midterms from Wednesday to Friday, and they were so boring and stupid. Most of them were easy, though. But thanks for the concern (you too, Mr. K). I guess I should change it....today should be a good day -- FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!

I would recommend Apto, btw.

Originally Posted by Mr K

Well you don't get much better than the owner popping in and saying Hi
I've not come across Aptohosting before, care to give a quick run down of your systems, support etc? (sorry probably should start a new post rather than hijack this one)

Mr. K,

No problem!

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Also forgot to include my name is Tom, I live in North Carolina. I love running this business and really do enjoy helping get peoples dreams and visions on the web (as corny as that sounds) its true!

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Thanks,
Tom C.
www.aptohosting.com

Originally Posted by Merkin Man

Not yet. But I will have it soon. I want a hosting company that can be more than just a hosting company for me. I think GoDaddy might be too big for me. I'm doing some research into what company I should go with.

GoDaddy hosting is terrible. Apto would not be a bad choice. I don't know any other hosts where you can call the owner if theres a problem.