Getting There From Here - Progress Reports

Getting There From Here Progress Report #4 - February 1, 2010

GettingThere@GettingThereFromHere.info — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:10:00 GMT

Things picked up a little bit in January, with a more than 36% increase in traffic to the website. That's still not saying much, as we remain in soft-launch. Here is what progress was made:

Financials

Still no income. The only source of income the site has (for now) is Google AdSense, and there has not been enough traffic (and nobody clicking on links) to bring in any revenue yet.

Also no new expenses.

Previous Balance: $-22.24

January Income: $0

January Expenses: $0

Total Cash On Hand: $-22.24

What We've Done

Very little outwardly visible was done in January, with the only blog post being the December status update. Traffic was up overall, 28 unique visitors making a total of 41 visits to the site. Overall page views were down, probably as a result of not having any new content. As a result, total ad impressions also declined.

What's Coming Up

Look for a number of interesting news updates in February, as we have several posts in different stages of completion. Also, a PayPal tip jar will appear on the site at some point in February, and you will be able to read more about that in an upcoming post shortly. Look for a handful of these new blog posts to be cross-posted to other blogs.

We're also hoping to spur some discussion in our forums about the future of NASA and commercial space exploration, based on the new 5-year budget plan for NASA, as well as some of the papers that will be presented at the Space, Propulsion & Energy Sciences International Forum which will be held later this month (February 23-25) at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.

Getting There From Here Progress Report #3 - January 3, 2010

GettingThere@GettingThereFromHere.info — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:10:00 GMT

Our second month was, if anything, slower than our first month of soft-launch. Between vacations, the holidays, and other time commitments, there wasn't much time to improve the site. Here is what progress was made:

Financials

Still no income. The only source of income the site would have right now would be from Google AdSense, and there has not been enough traffic (and nobody clicking on links) to bring in any revenue yet.

Also no new expenses.

Previous Balance: $-22.24

December Income: $0

December Expenses: $0

Total Cash On Hand: $-22.24

What We've Done

Not much got done this month, but one big thing that did get done was a more detailed definition of The Plan. We continued customizing some of the sections of the site with "Who's Working On It" links and section-specific subsets of the blog. Other than the updated plan, the only blog post for the month of December was the November progress report. There was a little bit of activity in the forums, with some interesting discussions getting started. Traffic was down overall, with 293 Google AdSense ad impressions resulting from 18 unique visitors making a total of 30 visits to the site.

What's Coming Up

Most of what we've said the last two months is still coming up. We need to add more detailed "Who's Working On It" and expand it to all (or most) sections. We'll be adding some context ads in the forums and possibly on the main blog view to try to get a little bit of revenue. We will also be adding a PayPal tip jar at some point so you can contribute directly to the mission of Getting There From Here. Hopefully some new blog posts and some new forum threads will be created, either by us or by members of our small (but growing) community.

We have started crafting some more detailed blog posts about space science and technology, and plan to start getting involved in the Carnival of Space, which will hopefully bring some additional traffic to the site. That's pretty much it for this month. Again, not much to report, but a few small steps have been made on what will be a very, very long journey.

Getting There From Here Progress Report #1 - November 1, 2009

GettingThere@GettingThereFromHere.info — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:28:00 GMT

This is the first progress report for Getting There From Here... and since the site was only brought online on three days ago, there's not much to report yet! Obviously there is still a lot of work to do, but at least we're started!

Financials

Not much to talk about here, as we were only running for the last three days of October and had very little traffic. We did have four total visitors to the site, which means there were at least a couple of people other than the site operators who visited. Traffic has crept up slowly day after day, which is a good sign, as long as it keeps up.

October Income: $0

October Expenses: $0

Total Cash On Hand: $0

What We've Done

In the first few days, we have set up the basic site structure, added The Plan, set up a blog, and put the forums in place. Not a lot of activity so far, but we have our first registered user already, so we're off on the right foot!

You should easily be able to tell by looking that we have added Google AdSense ads to the website in an attempt to establish a revenue stream to support the goals of Getting There From Here. We have other things planned in the next few months, but since this is not a full time job for any of us (yet) it may take us some time.

What's Coming Up

Obviously we still need to flesh out a lot of the site and add content in a lot of areas. If you have suggestions, post them in the forums or add them as comments on a relevant blog posting. Today we started adding "Who's Working On It" sections to the various pages to show what companies or organizations are actively working on pushing forward each section. We'll be adding a lot of those over the coming weeks, but we don't know everything, so if you know of something we've missed, post it in the forums (in the appropriate section).

We would like to make the site... prettier. We're using the basic DotNetNuke template, the "skin" that comes with it, and while it looks okay, it also looks just like the basic DotNetNuke template. We'd like something a little more "space" themed, but completely lack anything resembling design skills. If anyone out there would like to help out, we could sure use some help in that area.

We're also going to add some new potential sources of revenue in the coming weeks and months; please don't be offended, but our goal here is actually to colonize the galaxy, and that is likely to take vast economic resources. We have to start somewhere.

And that's pretty much it for the first progress report. Hopefully when we post our next report in about a month, we'll have some financial numbers to report (preferably more on the revenue side than on the expenses side).