[consulting] Drupal.org advertising proposals requested

[Bill Fitzgerald]

 From this article on Craigslist: 
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2007/id20070515_301894.htm

 From the intro:
"A few things you should know about Craigslist. It serves classified ads 
to 450 cities. The site receives more than 750,000 job listings a month, 
and users self-publish about 14 million new classifieds a month. 
Buckmaster confirms the site has been profitable since late 1999, and it 
generates revenues by charging nominal fees for job posts in seven 
cities and for broker's apartment listings in New York. No user fees. No 
banner ads. Analysts estimate the site took in $25 million in revenues 
last year, but it's clear that that the site could be worth more—very 
much more."

 From the first question:
"*Why aren't you doing more to monetize the site?*

We've been told by salespeople that we could bring in many millions of 
dollars by adding text ads but our users aren't asking us for text ads 
so we don't have them. Paid search can create a conflict of interest 
with site search. The better your site search is, the less need there is 
for paid search."

I think there are some parallels between Craigslist and d.o --

Cheers,

Bill


The Golden Condor ! wrote:
> I'm with Khalid on this. Using an existing ads provider is much easier
> than trying to manage ads internally. Of course, it doesn't have to be
> Google. There are several alternatives. It all boils down to who can
> provide the highest CPC (cost per click) and the highest revenue
> share.
>
> When ads are displayed in moderation, they can provide value to some
> users and negligible inconvenience to others. I like the way they're
> displayed on the TRAC web site (trac.edgewall.org).  Generally, the
> more intrusive the ads are the money revenue is generated. Let's hope
> d.o doesn't get greedy.
>
> Cheers,
>
> TAA
>
> On 5/27/07, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:
>   
>> I think one way to start this is to offer Google Adsense on Drupal.org.
>> Google text ads are not intrusive and clearly marked as ads.
>> Companies interested in advertising can click "advertise on this site"
>> and Google automatically handles the back end for the Association.
>>
>> This can be done for an experimental period (e.g. 2 months) and then
>> reevaluated.
>>
>> This serves the main goals of this experiment: expose service providers
>>  to visitors, and raise money for the association.
>>
>> It also relieves the Association from the decisions on what ads to run,
>> and all the potential complaints about that. It will be Google's algorithms
>> that are deciding what ads to run in an auction style ad system.
>>
>> Still the downside, whichever way we do it, is that big shops with big
>> bucks can drown out the smaller shops who do not have a large advertising
>> budget.
>>
>> The Google Adsense module can be used for this. It offers blocks of
>> different sizes/channels, and blocks can be made to appear on certain
>> paths only if needed.
>> --
>> 2bits.com
>> http://2bits.com
>> Drupal development, customization and consulting.
>> _______________________________________________
>> consulting mailing list
>> consulting at drupal.org
>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>>
>>
>>     
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>   


-- 
Bill Fitzgerald
http://www.funnymonkey.com
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