[consulting] Drupal.org advertising proposals requested

Sun May 27 18:12:15 UTC 2007

On 5/27/07, Sami Khan <sami at etopian.net> wrote:
>
> My few cents:
>
> Other than perhaps monetizing with Google's ad-sense, I don't really
> see the market that would advertise.

Big hosting companies like GoDaddy and Dreamhost host thousands of Drupal
sites.  They spend millions on advertising.  We are in talks with many
hosting companies that would love to guarantee thousands of dollars in sales
commission for the Drupal association that would easily pay for all or
hardware needs going forward.

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...

The big hosting companies have very generous affiliate sales programs.  But
we are turning to the community to get their input.

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...?

The Drupal association is a non-profit Belgium organization.  All the
members of the association are among the top volunteers to the Drupal
project.  Legally things are set up to benefit the Drupal project and not
any one person or company.

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.

I would hope that since the money is going towards funding the
infrastructure for the Drupal project people would happy to see the
improvement this enabled for the community.

Google's Adsense for keyword drupal:
>    Drupal Hosting CA$ 8.35
> Everything you need to run Drupal
> 360 GB Disk, 3600 GB, PHP, mySQL
> www.servage.net
>
> Drupal Web Design Firm
> Tableless CSS Web Site Designs
> Powered By Drupal. Free Quote.
> www.ImageXMedia.com
>
> Drupal 5 Development Work
> We develop dynamic, interactive web
> sites using the Drupal framework.
> www.antinomia.com
>
> UK's Drupal specialists
> ComputerMinds are the UK's leading
> Drupal developers and consultants.
> www.computerminds.co.uk

Cheers,
Kieran

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.
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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>

-- 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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