How to Build a Chat Line/Service
Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes
When you’re up late no matter what station you’re watching some live chat line comes up. They always make it look like the fine women didn’t make it to the club and now they are on the phone meeting people that way. Either way it’s a hell of a scam but there are a lot of people who like to be lied to and will pay for it. Since I can’t discriminate in this game I thought I would put it out for you cats to mull over. A lot of you cats can get your friends together and really make some money on this angle together.
Chat lines are popular sources of communication that allow people to connect and discuss topics of interest. Livelinks, Vibeline and Holywood Psychics are three chat lines that are successful due to their popularity. The majority of chat lines are for individuals seeking dates or companionship. However, any niche will be popular if there is a market for its service.
- Select a niche for your phone chat line. Choose a niche that is popular and marketable. Be specific when you select your niche because you will have to advertise to that niche’s target market.
- Establish a budget for your chat service. Determine your initial set up costs, which depends on how many call lines you choose to activate, the fees required by the company you choose to host your calls and the methods you use to market your service. Once initial costs are paid, determine the monthly maintenance cost of your phone chat line.
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Set up your chat line infrastructure. Find a company that offers phone conferencing and supports a large number of callers at once. Softworks International, TurboBridge and Robustline offer phone chat line services online. Contact your local phone company and ask about their multiple phone line packages. Inquire about additional features including voice messaging and private call rooms to make the chat experience personal and more enjoyable for your members.
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Name your chat service and select a 900 number. Register your business name and obtain a tax ID number. Familiarize yourself with the FCC’s guidelines for using 900 numbers.
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Test your phone chat service before making it live. Arrange calls to your chat line with friends and business associates to check all of the features and make sure that they work properly.
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Advertise your phone chat line. Find magazines specific to your chat line’s niche and place classified ads in them. Create a website about your phone chat service and promote it by placing links to your site in forums specific to your niche. Create a television commercial if your budget allows and tell everyone you talk to about your new chat line.
Now, it doesn’t have to be a Sex line as some of you creative cats can come up with different angles. I am sure Pimping, Macking and whatever else related to that seems to attract a lot of cats to breakbread. Now it doesn’t seem to be that expensive to set up as I can see a cat setting all this up with 2 or 3 magicjacks. I’m sure there are a lot of all in one services if you look up Chat Lines on Google. So there you go for you cats who think you can get this up and running. I am sure it’s money in it but I can’t find exactly the turnover. I don’t think 1-900-chunkyasses will exactly report their revenue on the internet as this seems to be something the owners keep on the low. But, it has to be working because they pay for advertising all night every night.
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I have looked at this before. I am not sure if this is still as lucrative as it once was back in the day. I figured cats get with the company and private label it with a number they purchased because i see some with local area codes. with facebook and live vid chats i figured it has probably dead. I may hove to look again into this. thanks freeman.
I think since the advent of VOIP this shouldn’t be as expensive anymore. Since most people are pretty much communicating through the internet the old phone company charges are not in the equation. When I was looking this up I saw a lot of companies that pretty much will set you up as long as they can take some of the money per call. Now I don’t have the talent or the people to do this but if you did a psychic line people would call. This is just a little advertising in a small area and people will call out of curiosity. Remember Ms. Cleo!
I’m definetly going to try this! I wonder how much cash can be made with this service now a days?
I have no idea on this one besides me eye balling it and thinking it’s simple to set up. Even if you had one line and you charged people 3 dollars a minute you could probably get 6 calls a day for an average of 5 to 10 minutes. So thats 180 bucks a day on some dumb shit.
This reminds of a scene from the movie CB4 so it makes me laugh when I think about it.
I always wondered how this worked. although this business has been around for a while every now and then i have seen the commercials on TV. The only turn key chat service i saw that the price is not so crazy was robustline. They charge a $599.00 set up fee and then $50.00 a month. all you have to do is to advertise the service in magazines etc. I was wondering if i can use a call conferencing system and put a 1-800 number on it and see if it works. any ideas!!
As it may not be lucreative as it once was before all this social networking became more popular as it never was before it can still create a steady flow through advertising. I used to clown around on talkee but when I used it before I never heard any advertising and I wondered why it was still running. Plus it was totally free. So this is something I have looked into and should continue.
@G71 – Between a couple of cats you are looking at about 1200 a year or 100 a month to get this up and running. So maybe another 1000 in advertising and you got some chips flowing in. Like I said how man cats do you actually need to call in a day anyway? So if you get the right line and have the right folks answering the phones I can’t see how it won’t work. The question becomes what is the chat line going to be about because you need to think of a reason people would call. Besides sex, fortune and your lucky numbers I haven’t got a clue.
@Kozi – The other places are probably selling your email addresses and access names to advertisers. That way you get solicitations in the mail for wild shit. Whenever anything is online their angle is always accumulating a list of people to sell to other advertisers. I still think the phone/chat line is good for local markets because there are a lot of people who believe a woman in lingerie is lonely talking to random guys on the phone at 1am making you think she could be talking to you. It’s a great scam but it’s the nature of people to want to talk and imagine.
Are you mind reading or something? I was just looking at Girl 6 and alot of cats will call cause they lonely. I was flipping through the hiphop mags.. that psychic line must be breaking bread cause they in alot of different mags.
In typical R&G fashion I was up late one night and they showed this chat line where the woman was in lingerie talking about she missed the party and was staying in tonight. She said she’s waiting on me to call through the TV because she was talking to me. But, since I don’t have a trick bone in my body I just started laughing and wondered how does one go about that hustle.
It’s a below the radar start up for sure because I don’t know anyone who is doing it and how much money is being made from it. I can’t find real numbers anywhere so it always leads me to think it’s something cats don’t want people to find out. I’m thinking it can be done on such a small level it might be a part time, late night or weekend angle that could make you some decent money.