Free URL Shortener Service OneCent.US 90% of Revenue to Charity!

July 4, 2010 - PRLog -- I admit I get enthusiastic and jump into things quickly and often find that I reinvent the wheel, but when something is new to me I really don't give a damn. My main goal in life has always been to be amused, occupied and to feel good, and I've made a lot of mistakes in the past on choosing some less than ideal ways to achieve it, probably because I didn't realize what it was I really wanted out of life to begin with. Now, at my age, 55 as of this writing, I'm smart enough to realize what I am.

I've been through some hideous things in the beginning of this millennium that no one should ever have to experience and I survived. And without a shred of false pride. I'm just grateful, incredibly lucky and sometimes clever.

Or at least I like to think so. Actually, nothing new under the sun is pretty true, as evidenced
by my recent foray into the wild, wild west of FREE URL shortener services as http://onecent.us. I thought I had a pretty cool and unique idea. I was new to Twitter and finally saw its value in business and was familiar with TinyUrl.com the original, and bit.ly, the current 2,000 pound gorilla. Both their generated URL lengths are at 6 characters, which in base 36 arithmetic can handle up to 2,176,782,336 URLs. That's over two billion folks. We're new, so we're still at 2 characters, which is only 1,296, then 3 characters is 46,656, 4 is 1,679,616, and 5 is 60,466,176. So at 2 billion and some quick math at a CPM (cost per mille - that's advertising jive for thousand) of $2 a thousand for ad impressions which is sort of a rate on the internet people might be willing to pay, that's potential advertising revenue of $4,353,564.66.

So started my own URL shortener service, free like all the rest and my hook and/or gimmick is I'm a dot US domain with a clever name, onecent.us. Also, I would donate 50% of advertising revenue to reputable charities, an idea I thought was both unique as well more than generous. I'm appealing to the patriotic angle, if anybody's still allowed to have any national pride in this country after apologizing to the world for being such evil bastards.

Then, I read that some Libyan .ly domain service is donating 55% to charity, keeping 45% to run the business, so they're more clever than me, dammit. And I find this out on the 4th of July, 2010, which pops my cloud a bit, until I hear that they have raised $5.3 million dollars in investments, so there's a cool 2.385 million in it for them?

2 million and big change? Wow. I started onecent.us for 75 BUCKS! What the HELL could you possibly spend $2.915 MILLION DOLLARS ON? I have NOTHING against Libya, okay? We have diplomatic relations with them these days and they have renounced terorism and I'm glad for that and happy for them as well. But I'm an American, and .ly domains are Libyan and .us is the good old USA, and I'm not ashamed to wave a little flag, okay?

So, politics aside, all I had to do was register the .US domain name, give 'em my SSN# to prove I'm an American then get a GoDaddy account for the website. I wrote a PHP script and some MySQL databases to do the administrative database work. I'm a very good programmer, but there's millions of guys like me who can do the same thing. Also, both PHP and MySQL are FREE and GoDaddy gives them to you when you use them for hosting, PLUS you get to look at Danica Patrick at no extra charge, a perk which did not go unappreciated by me, though it HAS cost me some time. I AM 55 but I ain't dead yet, ladies.

So, I immediately decided I did not deserve nor need 50% let alone 45% of the ad revenue if I do this right and market the thing cleverly. I decided to lowball the rest of these people to head 'em off at the pass, but I still don't see HOW the hell you could spend almost three million bucks on such a simple computer application.

Which got me thinking about smoke, mirrors, jive and snake oil since the dawn of time. This is a greedy little world, and while I do not judge ANYONE's motives or even try to, as I really do believe that deep down most people are good, some are just more clever about it. The big green monster can make anyone crazier quicker than anything but a woman. Money I can live without, but women? All I need or want is one good one, and I'll be dead when that hope is gone.

So I wondered, how much is really fair here? I liked the idea of 15% for me. 15% is sort of a standard or at least used to be in the advertising world and that's basically what I'm doing here, selling advertising, thinly veiled by patriotism and charitable guilt and goodness.

But, in looking at the charities I will let people select from to donate to, I start getting queasy when I read what some of our supposed pillars of philanthropy spend in terms of a % of their donations versus operating and fundraising effort costs. Some make these guys in Libya look like Mother Theresa, and mind you, I am NOT knowcking Libya or these people in the least. They're in BUSINESS and they seem honest and good hearted and who the hell am I to judge or dictate how much ANYONE should make? I at least admit to be a capitalist and to me it seems they do too, as it's obvious we're BOTH tryin' to make some money here. I do not deny that. I have to eat. But considering my capital venture was 75 bucks and I'm a one man shop and my kids are all grown and I have no wife, I don't really need MUCH the extra couple million I guess.

So screw it. I just decided. Hell with 50%. Hell with 55%, even 85% to charity. I'm gonna make it 90% to charity, and 10% for yours truly, and whether I can or can not eke out a small chunk of change or even a half way decent wage, I'm sure as hell gonna feel good about it and sleep at night.

And no friggin' way do I wanna be a 5013C (nonprofit, tax-exempt) myself. Last thing I want or need is the government tellin' me how to run my business. And I don't need or want a partner, and I'm getting by okay so far without the extra $2,384,925 million I'd have to struggle by on if I had 45% of 5.3 million. I'll even eat next years 75 bucks for GoDaddy hosting or however much it is then out of my own pocket. The freedom to make the decisions myself without lawyers and politicians and a board of directors dipping into the till is worth the 2.38 million I guess.

So? I'll keep using my FREE Twitter account and FREE Google organic SEO and FREE press releases and FREE article directory services and FREE PHP and FREE MySQL and my own FREE programming and marketing and design work and FREE sweat equity and FREE email and FREE Skype to try to make this sucker a go.

All I hope is that some people believe in me, like my attitude and support it by using the thing. 90% of the money to charity makes it a better example than almost ANY major charity, and I AM NOT KNOCKING any of them. They all have almost a thankless job and there's always some bastard ready to criticize, and that's not gonna be me. I especially have all the sympathy in the world for people who try to feed the starving masses of this pitiful planet and politicians and dictators stop 'em and let little children starve. 50% of the food eaten on this planet by weight is RICE and last time I looked I can buy a cup of dry brown store brand rice for less than a nickel a serving at my local grocery store in the rich USA. NO ONE on this ball of dirt should have to go hungry in this day and age but they DO and even die a slow, horrible death from it.

Yeah, I gotta eat, but so do they. EVERYBODY does and I'm not gonna gum up the works on this little effort of mine until I try to help a little. And if it doesn't work? Too bad. I got some
other ideas.

Happy 4th of July, 2010 @ 6:51 PM eastern

Bill Purkins, Deer Park, New York
Currently volunteer Owner, Operator, MIS director, Marketing manager and Janitor:
Web: http://onecent.us
email: onecentdotus@yahoo.com
twitter: onecentdotus
telephone & text: 1-631-455-8756
skype: William O. Purkins III