Name of your website?Madison County Courier-Madison County New York News
Your name?
Mike Bova
Your Location (city, etc)
Oneida
Please give us a short summary of your website?
The Madison County Courier publishes news from all across Madison County New York including Wampsville, Oneida, Hamilton, Canastota, Chittenango and Cazenovia.
How did you get involved with this web site?
The three main partners approached me to help them launch a different type of news concept and being a local newspaper guy, I took their offer.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
The first web site I ever launched was walletsandmore.com. It was an ecommerce site specializing in men's and women's clothing accessories.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Our parent company is M3P Publications. When anyone asks, we tell them our web site (self-proclaimed) has three times more news than the other sites plus...
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
We not only cover county news, we cover local news. All the towns, villages and hamlets are represented. We truly care about the people we serve, and we're passionate about the news business. I believe that shows in the product we put out there.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Keep it for income and expand into other areas across New York State and across the country.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
The site has been "live" for only two months. Traffic and revenue are beyond our wildest dreams.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We would add so many more facets to the site that would draw visitors, being the best resource in the area.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes. We will hire people as we grow. There are nine of us now, and we just keeping up now. We realize our need for people.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
None that we haven't thought of to be honest.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Working out the bugs. We're conquering them though.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Email blasts.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It hasn't differed really outside of the fact we get so many emails and so many news articles to post. Didn't expect the enormous results this fast.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site was rolled out under the radar on April 17th. We had our virtual launch party on June 1. That was my first day. We'll keep it until web sites are obsolete.
What are your plans long term?
Expand, Expand, Expand. Launch many more online newspapers.
What is your website address?
Madison County Courier-Madison County New York News
