[consulting] Drupal.org advertising proposals requested

[Karthik]

Thinking out loud:

a) Let inclined users support the Drupal project by displaying Google
/ whatever ads on their personal sites with all proceeds going towards
Drupal. An appropriate copy/paste snippet can be posted on drupal.org.

b) Ship the default distribution of Drupal with modules that generate
revenue for the Drupal project. For e.g., similar to how the Mozilla
foundation apparently makes its daily fortune, Drupal could ship with
a Google search block that users could use instead of the Drupal
search module. All this would obviously require complete transparency
etc..

c) Override the search module on drupal.org with Google's custom
search (or whatever it is called) - generate revenue and ease hardware
concerns. Kill two birds with one search, so to speak :)

d) As I believe somebody has already stated, use affiliate programs to
generate revenue. Instead of pushing for advertising, perhaps
something along the following lines might prove more beneficial:
  - Expand the recommended hosts page to include a Drupal.org review
of each host's offerings. For e.g., support for LOCK TABLES, TEMPORARY
TABLE, clean URL support, safe modes and so on.
  - This could also be used to perhaps push for PHP 5 support by
making this a prerequisite.
  - Include only commercial hosts with suitable infrastructure in
place. No lilliput 1 man shows etc.
  - All links to the host will contain an affiliate ID that will
generate revenue for Drupal.
  - Give these pages an appropriate level of prominence on drupal.org.



Some of the above ideas might be a little extreme. But I'm just
putting it out there ...

On a related note, association.drupal.org does not seem to have any
information (besides a brief donor list) on the financial status of
the Drupal Association. If membership / advertising / whatever
programs are to succeed, I highly recommend keeping things transparent
and accessible to the community.

-K