Donating cels? What? Er... I don't think that's 
such a great idea. I mean, yeah, it's nice that 
folks out there are thinking in a generous way, 
but I think that's asking too much. Personally, I 
would feel guilty about taking someone's cels and 
selling them to pay the server bills. Feels like 
I'm robbing you. *shudder*

Part of the no pop-up thing is a personal bet. I 
do programming/design/etc. consulting for 
a "living" (in quotes because I'm not working 
right now) and I just don't believe that non-
targeted banner ads work. I don't want to waste 
anyone's money. The philosophy is that your 
dollars are just as good as mine. (both 
advertisers' and site members')

Of course, maybe it's just a pipe dream to 
believe that there's some other form of 
compelling content that can be provided to site 
members without sizable annoyance.

Allow me to put this another way. Our asset -- 
yours and mine, as a website -- is that we have 
300-400 people who spend a lot on anime. What is 
it that rabid cel collectors want? How can we use 
our collective bargaining power to both help the 
site and give members some sort of advantage they 
would not be able to obtain on their own?

Off the top of my head... maybe I could start 
talking to some online anime dealers to negotiate 
some sort of "discount" in exchange for a lot of 
new business from a relatively well-heeled 
demographic (anime cel collectors have money, 
it's a plain fact) and a percentage of sales to 
the site. Maybe even auction fee discounts?

Or how many of you would like to turn your sites 
into giant shopping carts? All the sites are 
pretty much catalogs that need "buy now" buttons. 
(This has been in since the beginning, but never 
activated.)

So I ask you, as collectors, what is it that 
would really make your day? If there's any 
corporate sponsor types (c'mon ADV, you guys live 
down the street from me in Houston) out there 
reading this, I'm open to suggestions.


jn