T-206.com Free Portfolio Tool

[Archive]

Posted By: David Simon

Leon is right, this is connected to the Ebay Partner Network, however, the miniscule revenue that is generated from EPN (<$400./mo) does not even begin to cover the hosting costs for the site. If you consider the cost of the hardware, development time, development libraries, licensing of ebay's market data, etc., it operates at a loss. Add to that the monthly cost of Adwords to get the word out since I have not posted here in several months, and we are talking about several thousand a month in operating losses.

The engine that drives this took over three years to develop. I'm working towards leveraging the engine in other verticals and use T206 as a development sandbox. So the community gets the benefit of that development. With all due respect to Leon and others who may question my motives, I think that is the indicator of my altruism.

If I was in it for the money, I would charge for access as others do or I would sell advertising on the site. I don't because profit is NOT the focus of the site. For that, I run a profitable software development and infrastructure management company and that gives me the ability to make t-206.com free.

At some point though, I may launch a site, for profit, to compete with the other commercial sites in the sports collectibles space. If and when that happens, T206 will remain up, free, and continue to function as a development site.

I really do believe that market data should be free and transparent. And as far as I can tell, to date, I'm the only one putting my money where my mouth is. Is that altruistic enough?

ds