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<TITLE>Re: [consulting] Drupal.org advertising proposals requested</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>On 5/29/07 1:09 AM, kieran@civicspacelabs.org hollered:<BR>
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Two things we are looking for.<BR>
1) Relevant to the needs of Drupal community<BR>
-- I'd like to see a proposal that explains how Google Ads would be relevant the needs of the Drupal community. <BR>
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2) Placed in relevant sections<BR>
-- I'd like to see a proposal that includes offering advertising in relevant sections.<BR>
e.g. When people go looking in the paid hosting forums explicitly to find a paid hosting service would it make sense to have ads there. <BR>
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I’m not very warm to the idea of Google being used as an ad service because it doesn’t specifically meet the needs within the community. I’m also not interested in seeing non-drupal related ads on the site, which would come through Google.<B> </B>Keiran is right, there are a lot of cases made against a general ad service.<BR>
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>From my perspective, I would like to see Drupal make money from individuals and companies that use Drupal.org to make money already. Consultants, developers, trainers (like me) and other folks who promote their commercial services should be charged to do so. A membership-like structure for advertising sounds ideal. Maybe the commercial members have their own category they pay to post in, and these posts are then sorted onto other pages based on their tags or content. Those posts can be moderated by the community and the community can play a role in determining what kind of advertising is appropriate on the site in an organic way. This is not unlike the way Craigslist charges realtors and recruiters to post and the rest of the users post for free – and mostly everyone gets along.<BR>
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I’m also concerned about the pay structure. Commercial Drupal outfits could, in theory, buy their way to the top of the street cred list rather than earn it like its done now. I hope that this advertising plan is built in a way to keep the advertising arena fairly level.<BR>
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Sean Effel<BR>
<a href="http://www.drupaltherapy.com">http://www.drupaltherapy.com</a><BR>
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