Before I say anything... I just want to say that I do like Mene and I think it's a great site, and I have nothing against Josh whatsoever.

But I saw this thread when I googled Mene:
http://www.retireat21.com/forums/ind...?showtopic=423

"Making money online". Does this mean that by successful, Josh thinks that Mene will make him a lot of money... so he can "retire at 21"?

I mean, there's nothing wrong with that at all. I'm just questioning the purpose of these sites. I mean... we're only chatting... and our chatting is a source of revenue for someone. It just seems almost surreal.

I dont find it 'surreal' that chatting becomes a source of revenue for someone myself. If you have any kind of telephone (mobile, landline, internet telephone), you're paying a company there to chat, the site just has added bonuses of other activities for us to use.

Retiring at 21 from proceeds from Menewsha? As it stands at the moment I personally think that would be a pipedream. That's about 5-6 yrs away for Josh as well if I am remembering his age right? XD
I also notice that those posts were made almost a year ago, so it's not a current discussion he was having about his site.

Well we aren't just chatting, we're also giving them money. :lol: It only takes so much to run servers and pay staff, I'm sure there's a good bit extra from selling the ci's each month. While I don't think the main point of avatar sites is to make money, I'm sure that is part of it.

I believe Josh already sold Menewsha, so to my knowledge he isn't making anymore money off of it. I could be wrong though.

He did? I didn't know that XD (if you're right I mean)

And you're right, that's something I was going to touch on but thought that everyone knew really, the contribution items pay for server upkeep and for those staff that are paid a wage for what they do.
After all, you don't have to contribute heh

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  You realize that the forum there is just called Young Entrepreneur Forums and the thread is posted in a forum called Website Critique? I don't think Josh plans on retiring early just because of the profit he makes from Mene, he was just showing off the site and maybe advertising for some helpers. I also think that the profit isn't really that high. Sure, it's something, and while he's in school it's probably a good bit extra for him. But he also has to pay some staff and run the servers, as fevertofuture and sayuri already said.
  
  
  
  

I saw in a post awhile back, that he sent his parents on a cruise with money he's made; I thought that was nice :3
Send me on a cruise too D:

I don't think it's a big deal..Menewsha is nice..if he keeps this site going, I'll be happy....just as long as it doesn't turn into another Gaia than it's fine..

Since he is an entrepreneur online creating sites like this and gaining profit. I wouldn't exactly call it profit since the money goes to other projects of his. He wanted to see how an online community would work, so he created one. I call him genius, I don't know about you but I don't know any teenagers making enough money to send their parents on cruises. He has practically already laid out a career path for himself which other teenagers need to do.

He keeps us happy, so I don't think it's surreal.

I read through a bunch of Josh's blogs and things quite awhile back when I googled Mene. xD
Creating websites is a money-making venture.
That doesn't take away from my enjoyment of these types of sites at all.
^^

Josh is an internet entrepreneur who creates sites, grows them, and sells them later on for profit. He sold Menewsha a while ago; notice that when you buy contribution items now, your money goes to Escalate Media LP (co-owned by the admin LeeD) instead of Josh Buckley?

I am not worried about Menewsha becoming simply a commodity like Gaia has become, though. If Mene was only meant to bring in money, I think we would have seen some commercial ventures by now. As it is, we don't so much as have ads on the site (Josh did have some ad links on the front page at one point, but he took them down shortly after they were implemented). Also, Josh knows that the majority of Menewsha's userbase came over from Gaia because they were sick of that site and the way it sold out. I'm sure the admins are smart enough to infer that they would lose a LOT of members and activity if Menewsha went down the same path.

LeeD now owns Menewsha, you guys! Josh is still an Admin, but LeeD runs the show now. :)

Keep in mind that this is a business.

Several of our Staff are being paid. So we need to make enough money to pay people to make the site look pretty. Besides that, we also need money for the site to exist period. If we don't have that few thousand a month, we can't pay to run the servers. And no Menewsha.

Though Menewsha is a business, it doesn't follow that you can no longer enjoy it. The site is run as true to the community as its Staff can. We think of ways for you guys to enjoy Menewsha even without contributing.

And when we think of CIs, we think of things that will sell, this is true! But not because anyone behind the scenes is money-grubbing and conniving or anything. But we think of CIs you guys will buy so we can run the site and give you even more things you don't have to pay for. :3

When we start sending you emails about how you should try our partner site, then you can start worrying. ;3

Originally Posted by CK

When we start sending you emails about how you should try our partner site, then you can start worrying. ;3

thats exactly right ^^

not that anyone knows except lee himself, im pretty sure right now that not alot of the funds we get from CI's go directly into his pocket after he does everything else with the money

people also need to remember, hey, just maybe we are humans too! =D we survive on food and sleep just like everyone else, soooo working on a site that doesn't have a cent coming into it...well half of us would of died by now :P

we don't want to turn into a wuddle world now do we? =(

*fails to see why this is a shock*

You do realise that almost every interactive site on the web actually turns an income. Maybe not a profit but an income. When it gets popular it turns a profit. And avatar sites are remarkably good for getting a profit.

This really doesn't concern me at all. I know that sites like this are established so that people can earn money and do something enjoyable at the same time.
I actually find Josh to be a genius at the fact that he was able to establish a site like this while he was still a teenager. It is very impressive and the future looks very bright for him. It will definitely be interesting to see what else he does with his talent in online things (don't know what else to call it).

Anyways I doubt that the admins of this site will ever focus purely on just making money and forget about the community any time soon. It seems that they are very aware of what that does to a site because of seeing what happened to Gaia.

I wish I'd had the technical know-how to do something like this when I was younger, I just had a paper round lol XD

I stumbled across that page when I first joined Mene a long time ago. I thought some of the wording wasn't the best, but I never let that detract from my enjoyment. :3 The fact is, just about every website community is a business in some way.

I even surprised myself by donating to Mene as I'd never donated to any website at that point. XD I guess I just felt like on Gaia, my contribution didn't matter. ^^;

Well , i seriously doubt that he made this site just because he was bored.

What people don't see is that these sites are businesses. I have been working on Cruinne from a business aspect. I do it because i love these sites, they're fun, you make friends, you get to be creative, etc. But there's nothing wrong with getting revenue from it and making it into a career. It takes a LOT to make these sites be successful, to the point where it does need to be a career.

The internet IS the future :3