I will expect great things from you, Webdev!
I am glad you find some of my ideas helpful.
By the way, I think that getting 100 visitors a day and you've only had the website for a month and a half is not bad at all... I think it's pretty good, actually! You will build on your content, and before you know it, you will have 220 pages and 10,000 visitors a day!
I think it's a great idea that you contact your old professor, but I would think about his reaction, and think about how you want to present it to him. Some professors
may not be supportive of the idea, because they may think that you would just charge students to do their homework for them... so I would give it some thought first before you approach professors.
Maybe you can advertise privately to students (like in student newspaper, flyers around campus, etc) and at the same time, approach your old professors and tell them what you've been doing and ask them how you can engage the students with your website... the professors may give you excellent ideas, or can create the infrastructure through which students would get exposure to your website.
Fresh graduates and tech jobs... excellent idea!
Members Area... Excellent Idea!
Now, about the PHP open source, that's a tricky topic... on the one hand, I understand where you're coming from that you worked so hard on it and it would be hard for you to open it up to every one... on the other hand, having an open source would certainly bring people back and you might get lucky. To be honest, I am not too familiar with the whole open source scene (
) but I know Firefox, for example, is (may be, I am not too sure) an open source, where others can build their own applications... and now they are stealing market share from Microsoft! You may want to look at similar case studies and see how companies like Firefox were able to build a huge success based on an open source model.
My ignorance about open source may quickly become apparent to someone who is more familiar with the topic, but I think the principle is still accurate, i.e. giving something away for free may not necessarily mean that you won't make money off of it.
Now, the tricky part is when do you know whether you will succeed or not when you have to make a decision like that. Unfortunately, you do not! But do not think of it as setting yourself up for disappointment. On the risk of sounding corny, the hard truth is that you learn the most when you do not succeed. Notice I did not say you learn the most when you fail... because failure only happens when you give up. As long as you're out there trying your best, learning from your mistakes, and keeping your eyes on the destination, you will not get distracted by the little challenges that come up on the way, and you will eventually accomplish what you sought out to accomplish.
Phew, I didn't know I would be so corny so late/early in the morning
I think you're doing great! Keep up the good work!