Last week we launched a new version of the trip planner. On the surface, it doesn’t look much different from the previous version, but “under the hood”* it has changed significantly. Moving forward, it should be easier for us to add new features and fix any issues that come up (and issues are sure to come up, as you may have noticed already).
We’d love to hear your feedback on any aspect of the trip planner–what features we should add, what doesn’t work for you, etc. Please keep in mind though that the trip planner is a complicated beast and we have very limited resources with which to make improvements.
That brings me to the next topic, which is byCycle’s financial status. Since the start of the year, we have only generated $151.60 in revenue. At this rate, byCycle is not going to be “in business” much longer. We are looking into ways to remedy this situation. In the meantime, we could sure use some community support. Please consider making a donation or buying something from our online store.
In the next edition (coming soon), I’m going to write about the latest developments in our relationship with Metro**–stay tuned!
–Wyatt
* Ironic, I know. I would like to say “under the [part of the bike that contains all the complicated and mysterious machinery]” but most everything on a bike is out in the open or available for relatively easy inspection.
** Metro is the Portland area’s regional government.
We’ve been batting around the idea of becoming a non profit for almost a year, and have recently set a goal to decide once and for all.
We aren’t interested in making a profit with the trip planner, but would like to some how gather enough money to cover costs and perhaps pay the people that work on it. Being a non profit will give us access to much needed funds, but we are concerned that it will limit the types of things we are able to do with our software.
Some of our concerns are:
- what will happen to the soft ware if we do become a non-profit and later dissolve?
- what kinds of limitations will it place upon us?
- are we even eligible to attain non profit status?
Should byCycle become a non profit? Let us know by making a comment below.
I’m planning to write a longer post about our financial status, but that might take a while, so I thought I’d go ahead and post our Google Ads revenue, in case anyone’s curious. We first added Google Ads to the site on July 1st, 2006. Here are the figures:
- July: $41.86
- August: $53.38
- September: $64.34
- October: $82.79
It’s not a lot, but it almost covers our monthly server costs. One is $9.95 per month (for our Web site) and the other is $49.00 per month (for hosting the trip planner application). In the future, assuming more and more people are using the trip planner, that second figure could go up into the hundreds and possibly thousands.
Update
We are working on a partnership with Metro that would eliminate our server costs by hosting the trip planner on their servers. This would be tremendously helpful to the project. In addition to reducing costs, it would also make certain technical issues easier to deal with.