This is basically a fun business prospect for my fiancé and I. We're huge movie fans and would literally see every movie coming out if we could. Not to mention the constant rentals we go through... we range from B-flicks to Z-flicks. But, personally we despise movie critics in general. They seem to be too pre-defined toward certain types of movies and we'll... we'd like to give a different point of view and hope there are a few people who will like it. We're going to talk to the city about licenses and such but we're trying to get some info together first. Any advice would be great.

General ideas
-Review new and old movies so that if people agree with our reviews it can help them pick their next flick for a good old fashioned movie night
-A daily blog to discuss new movie trailers and other entertainment news
-We take requests, if we get followers they may like us to give them our opinion first

Income/Profit Potential
-Incorporate AdSense to gain some advertisement income
-Amazon affiliate program linking to movies and movie related products
-Netflix/Blockbuster Online affiliate program
-Fandango affiliate program for still-in-theater movie tickets
-Possibly get our reviews into a local newspaper
-Secret shopper/watcher program contracted with a local theater chains
-As always, donations are welcomed ;-)

Expense
-Free hosting through Microsoft Office Live Small Business
-Low cost domain name purchase/yearly rental
-Advertisement expenses will vary, but initially we'll use some free guerilla marketing techniques

Are These Tax Deductible;
-Movie tickets?
-Rental fees or rental programs?
-Given we'll likely (at least initially) use Paypal, what about those fees?

This is something we'd really like to do and we'd really enjoy. We hope that this can help offset expenses and make a small business at the same time has some potential.

The easy question first: yes, you should be able to classify the expenses of going to movies, renting movies, and Paypal, etc. as business expenses, so they would be subtracted from revenues you generate, and you pay tax on the profit you generate (I'm assuming North Carolina state business tax is on profit - but you better check into that).

If you're going to do this, it would be worth your while to set it up as an LLC (should only cost you a couple of hundred dollars). Then any expenses you incur, you do through the company. This makes it cleaner financially, and also provides you protection from liability.

The harder question is would this work. Since it's a web site, it's going to be all about traffic and content. The more content you ad, the more the search engines will like you. You'll also want to get yourself linked to as many other sites as possible - hopefully them linking to you, as it will give your site more authority.

You're going to have to get people to drop by also. These kind of things tend be viral, so folks will find out by word of mouth. I agree that most people find that what critics have to say doesn't really resonate with their own experiences, so if you can pull off the "we're just one of the folks kicking back and watching some flicks" routine, it could garner attention. You will probably want to try to do some sort of promotional things to get the ball rolling. Maybe hang out at local theaters and pass out fliers.

Getting your audience to take part in the site would be cool for a couple of reasons. People like to participate - and it makes for additional content for the site. You'll just have to figure out the format for that - a blog might be OK, but may have limited search capabilities (imagine two years from now when you've reviewed over a thousand flicks - people will likely want to search to find out if you've reviewed a movie they're considering - not browse around. But then you'll also have browsers.

Are you a web developer yourself? If you're not and you're serious about this, might not hurt do drag in a techie type to help make this work, so you and your fiancé can spend time watching movie and writing.

The revenue ideas sound good - especially the affiliate ideas - person reads review, likes what they hear, just got to get that movie, click Netflix, etc.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply. I hadn't even considered hitting up the local theaters with some flyers, maybe even the colleges and such. I might try a raffle or something with free movie tickets to get people to take a look. Any thoughts on ways to involve people? I love the idea but aside from a forum build up I haven't thought of much else. None the less having a place for people to debate movies and such could be good.

I'm not a developer but I have a friend of a friend who builts websites. I'm going to have him quote some work in a bit. I actually received an email from Microsoft Office Live about there website creator and tools and started playing around. Long story short, I ended up starting a site. I'm now a little unsure about switching it to a business once I get that worked out but I'll figure it out. I even have a little blog for random things somewhat related to my movie focus like a few YouTube series and Holiday Season Top 10 type stuff. The idea is to not croud the actual site with too much more than the primary focus of reviews but have related.

I joined AdSense and some other affiliates like Amazon, Walmart, Fandango and a general affiliate program... need Blockbuster and Netflix still. I've somehow gotten some hits despite the site only being listed undwer the Officelive url.

ADMIN, PLEASE READ, I'M NOT TRYING TO ADVERTISE MY SITE, JUST GET OPINIONS

Here is my site so far. Any suggestions are more than welcomed. All in all I'm having a lot of fun but need to spend some more time and get the reviews we've already written up. Only have a few for now. Thanks

A Couple Critics - The Movie Review and Entertainment Site

Where2,

Looks like a nice start.

As far as being under Microsoft Office Live, that might hinder you as far as showing up in search engines - I did a quick Google of "couple critics" movies and didn't see you. On the other hand maybe that's not such a big deal, as getting users is probably not going to be done through searches. Getting links from other sites to your site may be the most productive way to drive traffic.

Getting people to come back is going to be really dependent on the content you have, i.e. the reviews. You need to grind those out - set a schedule for yourself where both you and your fiancé have to do a certain number per week - maybe 10 each. Sounds like you watch a lot of movies.

Also use a spell checker on the content you post - you want the content to look professional.

Have fun and good luck!

Thanks again. I'm working on getting the site to appear through Google now but it's a little hit and miss. Currently the site appears through the link on this site so at least it's somewhere for now, haha. I'm also working on getting a linked from other sources such as twitter, Facebook, flickr, ezinearticles, etc.

We do watch a ton of movies. Our computer crashed last week and I've been so busy that I haven't had time to get anything done on the site. In addition, most of my time is used trying to get Google and webmaster tools code to work with office live. I can't help but appreciate the free hosting and domain name (The give us a free year with aCoupleCritics.com but it isn't the easiest thing I've had to do. There is a ton of help on the forum though.

Josh
A Couple Critics

Hi, Where2Begin!

You know, there are a lot of other ways that you can get excellent exposure for your site on the Internet that won't cost you anything. I can pretty much guarantee the results.

If you would like to know how to do that, please let me know.

Thanks!

I did receive your private message, Where2Begin! And, I'm waiting to help you right on this thread concerning marketing and advertising without it costing you anything to do so.

Thanks!

Hey, sorry for the misunderstanding... I thought you meant contact you as in a PM. None the less I look forward to hearing your advice to get my site started in the right direction without the expense, at least with less anyway. Thanks

Hi again, Where2Begin!

I'm usually on here late at night starting at about 11:00 P.M. Right now, It's about 1:34 A.M. where I am. I'll be on here at about the same time Saturday night, in case you're able to be on at about the same time. I realize that it will be an hour later for you, though.

Thanks!