Membership Databases

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Membership Databases

Is it worth it?

ollym

6:28 pm on Oct 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Hi there
I run a site for teenagers and am thinking about setting up a membership database to record details such as name, nickname, date of birth, mobile number, email etc. My question is, is this actually worth doing?

Currently my site is freely available to anyone who wants to browse it, log into the chat room and even post messages on certain parts of the site.

I was hoping by adding membership I would be able to collect and store many details (as above) that I could monetize as well as a points feature where people are rewarded points for filling in surveys and giving opinions. They could then trade the points for ringtones/logos etc.

Does anyone know how much work would be invovled in this - for a database of up to 500 000 users, and is the work and money needed worth the functionality I can add?

BwanaZulia

9:32 pm on Oct 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

If you are talking about selling the database, I have no idea.

I recently started moving sites over to "register" sites, some free, some with added pay benefits.

All in all, you need a lot of good, loyal, traffic to make it work. Once you get an active user base, I would tell them that it is coming, what the benefits are and make it as easy as possible.

Incentives are always good.

fwordboy

3:43 pm on Oct 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

it might be an idea to give membership, especially for access to the chat room. one word paedophiles.

BlueSky

3:57 pm on Oct 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

Don't know about other countries. If you're in the US, be sure you comply w/ COPPA which forbids collecting personal info from children under the age of 13 without parental consent. Although your site is geared towards teens, non-teens may be using it too.

For me, I would never intentionally collect and store personal info on anyone below the age of 18 except maybe for their email address. Those that young do not understand the ramifications of giving out too much personal info like later becoming a victim of identity theft or attracting pedophiles. If you intend to dangle incentives for them to give such info, then I question your real motive.