[consulting] Drupal.org advertising proposals requested

[Sami Khan]

My few cents:

Other than perhaps monetizing with Google's ad-sense, I don't really
see the market that would advertise. The community is mainly
developers of one kind or another, from newbies to experts... There
may be a few other types of users here and there. These are the people
seeing the advertisements. So exactly who is going to sell them
something? I feel, in terms of Drupal, these people are looking for
are jobs and just maybe some hosting. Jobs are taken care of by the
jobs forums and there is more demand than supply for good developers,
as far as I can tell... so really no need to advertise your services
if you're good.

As for hosting, well there are established players and then
specialized players like Bryght, in most cases the business is
cut-throat and not really worth it in terms of revenue to spend any
decent cash advertising -- word of mouth is better. There really isn't
much of a market in terms of advertisers to monetize... Google
ad-sense doesn't pay that well anyway. So I really doubt, even if you
guys were to deploy your own system you'd get tons of advertisers
paying top dollar for Drupal community eye balls.

Keeping these factors in mind, and then thinking about the integrity
of a developer community which contributes time to an open source
project, it really begs the questions as to whether there will be any
significant revenue, and secondly how these funds will be
appropriated? As you can see below there are only 4 advertisements for
the keyword Drupal, and I doubt they're netting much per click
considering 8.35$ for hosting.

As for creating some sort of corporate Drupal, again it begs the
questions, how much money is going to be made, what is going to be
sold, and what value is it going to add...? at what cost? How is the
dynamic of the community going to change and will it have a net effect
of being detrimental in terms of motivation of the current contrib and
even core developers. Some sort of corporate offering though may be
much more effective in generating revenue in this case than any ad
model would be... However, this is pure speculation, perhaps some
tests need to be done to see the revenue and whether it's really worth
compromising the current nature  of the project.

Google's Adsense for keyword drupal:
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www.servage.net

Drupal Web Design Firm
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Regards,
Sami

Quoting Michael Haggerty <mhaggerty at trellon.com>:

> -1 to ads on Drupal.org.
>
>
>
> Yes, you could bring in millions of dollars. But there are 100 other ways to
> do it that do not involve commercializing the main Drupal.org site.
>
>
>
> The aim of Drupal.org until now has been participation in an open source
> project and the most you had to earn was the respect of your peers. My
> concern is that inviting a commercial aspect into the community could change
> things dramatically and have unintended consequences that would creep in
> over time. There are already examples of people trying to cash in on the
> release of modules that have limited functionality in the GPL version and a
> ‘paid for’ version with more features you can buy from the author. Imagine
> where Drupal would be if this happened with views or CCK. What would it be
> like if you got a stripped down version of the CMS and had to pay for
> everything else? If people are primarily motivated by the potential for
> profit, this would be a much different community and ads could be an entrée
> into that kind of thinking.
>
>
>
> I know everyone wants to get paid, but a lot more thought should be put into
> this before being put in front of the community. Maybe there could be a
> separate site called providers.drupal.org, where ‘business’ types could post
> ads, white papers, portfolios, etc. and the community could review them?
> Maybe advertising on that site would make you eligible to communicate with
> prospective clients? With Joomla, there is a main site for the development
> of the application and a ‘forge’ site with a directory of add ons and
> providers. Simple segregation of information based on purpose may be the
> answer here.
>
> Thank you,
> Michael Haggerty
> Managing Partner
> Trellon, LLC
>  <http://www.trellon.com> http://www.trellon.com
> (p) 301-577-6162
> (c) 240-643-6561
> (f) 413-691-9114
> (aim) haggerty321
>
>   _____
>
> From: consulting-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:consulting-bounces at drupal.org]
> On Behalf Of Kieran Lal
> Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2007 10:53 AM
> To: A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal service/hosting providers
> Subject: [consulting] Drupal.org advertising proposals requested
>
>
>
> In 2006,  Drupal.org traffic increased 250%.  In order to prepare for future
> growth of Drupal.org and the needs of the Drupal community the Drupal
> Association is looking into starting a paid advertising program.  We believe
> that paid advertising that is relevant to the needs of Drupal
> administrators, Drupal users, and the Drupal community can be placed in
> relevant sections of Drupal.org and help the Drupal community greatly by
> funding improvements and infrastructure for Drupal.org websites.
>
> If you represent a company interested in participating please get in touch
> via this email.  We are looking for proposals from:
>
> * Hosting companies that provide reliable, secure hosting of Drupal web
> sites.
> * Web development and consulting companies and practioners which provide
> contributions back to the Drupal community.
>
> Advertisements on Drupal.org web sites will be marked as paid advertisements
> and must meet responsible hosting and consulting practices which are to be
> determined.  The Drupal Association will not explicitly endorse any
> advertisers.
>
> Funds raised from advertising will go to the Drupal association and fund
> infrastructure, and support improvements in Drupal.org to meet the needs of
> the Drupal community.  The Drupal association will also offer paid
> memberships to the Drupal association, for supporters that do not wish to
> advertise but still wish to support the Drupal project.
>
> Thank-you,
> Kieran Lal
> Drupal Association fund raising board member
>
>
> --
> To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
>
>