Basenotes began ten years ago, as something I did in my spare time. New launches were few and far between and the relatively small amount of visitors we had were easy to deal with.
Five years ago the site visitors began to rocket. The hosting on the site begun to cost almost as much as the rent on my house. It was a do or die time. I couldn't afford to subsidise the site any longer so it had to earn its keep. Luckily with a mix of user subscriptions and advertising we were soon able to meet this costs.
Ten years on and we're in a similar situation. We no longer have the man-power to carry on as we are. The amount of work the site demands in responding to emails, coding, editorial, database management, promotion, community management etc is too much for the two of us, and the time we have. (so, if you're wondering why that email you send three weeks ago hasn't got a response yet..)
If Basenotes is to carry on, we need to either downsize what the site does (we have already cut back in some non-essential areas) or we need to hire people.
We are incredibly grateful for the work that many people have volunteered to do (such as moderating) and I know many have offered themselves to add products to the directory. Sadly the infrastructure for this is not there yet - and while having many users collaborate works well for something like Wikipedia, due to the large userbase and wide subject matter - this wouldn't work as well on a niche-interest site such as this. A model like IMDB is more workable, where users can easily contribute data, and staff can approve or deny is at the touch of a button.
A Vision
We want Basenotes to be the destination for the serious fragrance lover.
We want for visitors to be able to go to any fragrance in the directory - even discontinued ones, and see an image and information. Some fragrances will even have a whole album of pictures showing how the bottle has changed over the years.
We want to have news updates from around the world covering all aspects of fragrances. Whether you're interested in niche, mass market, naturals, designer, new launches, bottle collecting or making it.
We want the wardrobes to be more useful. Want to know who else owns what you own, want to know what fragrances you should try next?
We want to develop iPhone apps so that you can be standing in the middle of a strange city, and find out where the nearest stockist of Lorenzo Villoresi is, and read reviews of the fragrance and the vendor at the touch of a button.
We want comprehensive bios of the big names and big houses in fragrance. And not just the big ones, the small ones too.
We want to continue doing exciting projects like creating our own fragrances with the help of you.
And lots more things. I'm sure you can think of things you'd like too.
So, what are we doing to achieve this.
We've partnered with two companies to help monetize our advertising inventory. Federated Media are handling our North American inventory and Handpicked Media are looking after our European inventory.
We are very pleased to be able to work with these companies - one reason is that it makes advertising sales one less job we need to take care of.
We have also relaunched our Supporting Members programme from today
It is now known as Basenotes Plus and gives Basenotes Members a little extra: For example, we just held a competition to win this rare Andy Tauer limited edition packaging version of L'Air:
Five years ago the site visitors began to rocket. The hosting on the site begun to cost almost as much as the rent on my house. It was a do or die time. I couldn't afford to subsidise the site any longer so it had to earn its keep. Luckily with a mix of user subscriptions and advertising we were soon able to meet this costs.
Ten years on and we're in a similar situation. We no longer have the man-power to carry on as we are. The amount of work the site demands in responding to emails, coding, editorial, database management, promotion, community management etc is too much for the two of us, and the time we have. (so, if you're wondering why that email you send three weeks ago hasn't got a response yet..)
If Basenotes is to carry on, we need to either downsize what the site does (we have already cut back in some non-essential areas) or we need to hire people.
We are incredibly grateful for the work that many people have volunteered to do (such as moderating) and I know many have offered themselves to add products to the directory. Sadly the infrastructure for this is not there yet - and while having many users collaborate works well for something like Wikipedia, due to the large userbase and wide subject matter - this wouldn't work as well on a niche-interest site such as this. A model like IMDB is more workable, where users can easily contribute data, and staff can approve or deny is at the touch of a button.
A Vision
We want Basenotes to be the destination for the serious fragrance lover.
We want for visitors to be able to go to any fragrance in the directory - even discontinued ones, and see an image and information. Some fragrances will even have a whole album of pictures showing how the bottle has changed over the years.
We want to have news updates from around the world covering all aspects of fragrances. Whether you're interested in niche, mass market, naturals, designer, new launches, bottle collecting or making it.
We want the wardrobes to be more useful. Want to know who else owns what you own, want to know what fragrances you should try next?
We want to develop iPhone apps so that you can be standing in the middle of a strange city, and find out where the nearest stockist of Lorenzo Villoresi is, and read reviews of the fragrance and the vendor at the touch of a button.
We want comprehensive bios of the big names and big houses in fragrance. And not just the big ones, the small ones too.
We want to continue doing exciting projects like creating our own fragrances with the help of you.
And lots more things. I'm sure you can think of things you'd like too.
So, what are we doing to achieve this.
We've partnered with two companies to help monetize our advertising inventory. Federated Media are handling our North American inventory and Handpicked Media are looking after our European inventory.
We are very pleased to be able to work with these companies - one reason is that it makes advertising sales one less job we need to take care of.
We have also relaunched our Supporting Members programme from today
It is now known as Basenotes Plus and gives Basenotes Members a little extra: For example, we just held a competition to win this rare Andy Tauer limited edition packaging version of L'Air:
You can find out the other benefits on this page here, and we'd be thrilled if you'd like to join in
Thanks for listening.
Grant and Danielle
Thanks for listening.
Grant and Danielle
I do think Basenotes in on the up and up .
