Robert Roose - My Thoughts about Technology, Games and Design » Niche experiment

WKinzuidafrika.nl

Robert Roose — Sat, 29 May 2010 10:30:00 +0000

I’ve created a small one page website about the Dutch Football team participating in the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The website provides an overview of played or upcoming matches, latest news about the Dutch football team and tweets which contain words such as ‘Oranje’ and ‘Nederlands elftal’. The website was made with Joomla and took me a couple of hours. So if you want to have a simple overview about the Netherlands kicking ass in South Africa go to http://www.wkinzuidafrika.nl. Don’t forget to share it with your friends, family and colleagues! Hup Holland Hup!

Update: Android Magazine Niche Experiment

Robert Roose — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:29:35 +0000

I promised to update on my niche experiment Android Magazine as soon as Android would become available in the Netherlands. Well, yesterday they announced the Dutch launch date and prices of the G1 mobile telephone with Android in Hamburg. And I was invited. Another perk I got thanks to my niche experiment.

The trip
We (4 journalists, 2 T-Mobile employees and me) flew from Amsterdam (Schiphol) to Hamburg Monday morning. At the airport we were picked up with a van and we were brought to our 5 star hotel. We had lunch and at 3 o’ clock the big press conference would start. A few minutes before it all would start we got a press map. The press map had all the information we needed, like the date the G1 would be available in Holland and the price plans rendering the press conference useless. I didn’t really get that but I posted up the information as soon as I could on Android Magazine via Twitter. After the press conference we went to a casual get together in Raven. The next morning we flew back with a KLM city hopper.

My experiment
As for my website, visitors count has increased but earnings are still about the same. They are slowly rising which is a good sign but it has to increase a lot more to become a steady income.

Android Magazine: My Niche Experiment

Robert Roose — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:37:59 +0000

Six month ago I started a website called Android Magazine. I wanted to test how fast I could build a website concentrated on a niche. I picked ‘Android’, the mobile operating system by Google, as my niche. Because there were already a lot of English websites concerning this subject I decided to make a Dutch website. I was the first Dutch website solely focused on Android.

The Experiment
With my Dutch website about Android I would take posts and news from English websites and translate them to Dutch. Being the first website offering unique Dutch content about Android. Becoming a Dutch community about Android was not a priority as I know it takes a lot of time and work to build a good solid community. Android Magazine however does have a forum and provides the ability to post comments on articles.

The Result
After six months I got the following results:

Constantly in the top 3 of the Dutch Google search results when somebody searches for ‘Android’.
I have been on a nationwide Radio show as an Android expert.
I have been invited to the Press Conference of the G1 (First Android phone) in Holland. And they gave me a test product to play with.

And here are some statistics which could be better but are not particularly bad:

About 50 to 100 visitors a day.
About $1 earnings a day from online advertising.

The relatively low amount of visitors could be because Android is still not available in Holland. When it becomes available to the public (probably February) I aspect an increase in visitors. This increase in visitors most probably will also increase my earnings.

I’m quite happy with above results. The fact that you can become an expert on a subject so easily is astounding. I would like to see more visitors and ad income but I suspect it’s just a matter of time before they start to increase. Maybe switching around the ads might also help.

I will update about this niche experiment in a couple of months when the G1 with Android has launched in the Netherlands.