Hellobee Boards

I'm sorry that your ads are being blocked. I would never block them knowing that they are needed to keep the site up. The ads are pretty seamless as is - so much so that I don't even notice them most of the time.
Would I pay to subscribe? I'm not sure. My kids are 3.5 and 1.5 years old. Older one is already in school. And though we are still experiencing a lot of toddler behavioral problems with my son, I'm hoping that that will get easier as he matures. When they're both fully in school, I wonder if I'll be frequenting a parenting site as much.
I would definitely consider a yearly subscription over a monthly subscription though. Perhaps, the site can also partner with some retail/service sites to provide some discount to members? Perhaps, those savings would offset the cost of a subscription.
If you were to offer an iPhone app, I would definitely purchase to support. I read HB on my phone almost entirely as is, so I obviously don't mind that there isn't a dedicated app currently.

I would not pay - sorry but I wouldn't pay to join any site unless it was like a really high value job site and I was desperate for work. Something like that. Honestly I block ads for all sites because they're a lot more obtrusive elsewhere and it's a pain to turn them off some places and not others. But I never click on ads anyway, anywhere, because it encourages me to spend money we dont have. Do you get paid per impression, or per click? (Sorry if this was asked already.) if per impression, I'm happy to put your site as an exception in my ad blocker. Fwiw, I visit hb from my phone all the time and have no ad blocker there.

@mrbee: No, I would not pay to subscribe to Hellobee and would not have paid to join. I agree that adblock is having a profound effect on how blogs make money. Unfortunately it is simply not enough to produce content and slap some advertising on the side and hope that drives clicks. I think most people would accept that time is over.

I think your only hope is making the community larger - (You will kill that by making it subscription) and diversifying revenue streams from advertising to advertising, sponsorship, market research, product testing, offers and competitions.

One thing I have noticed is that you also don't seem to align yourself with larger campaigns or issues affecting parents. If you look at a sight like http://www.mumsnet.com you can see that aligning/spearheading various social campaigns they have become the reference for what parents are concerned with. It has become the reference for politicians, media and business concerned with the opinions of parents.

I know you work in social media. While its true that the web and business in general are moving towards subscription models, people subscribe to get a tangible service. I know very few content suppliers who have succeeded in the subscription space and their content is certainly of a much higher quality than HB.

I also work in the online subscription space and I can guarantee that the vast majority of the people saying they would subscribe would not actually go on to do so. Those that do would probably do it for existing personal connections/feelings of obligation. That makes it completely unscalable.

Wishing you the best of luck.