Are Online Ads The Easy Way To Donate ?
When we redesigned the PURE website, we’ve had intense debates about adding ads or not on the main page.
I was against it mainly because when you give something Open Source, you give it for free and shouldn’t expect any financial returns.
However, I had nothing against donations.
Using ads as an easy way to donate got me convinced.
When you click on the ads, you don’t need to take your credit card out of your wallet but money goes to the provider.
Still, the reality is different. 35000 visits later, the amount of money raised thanks to the ads reaches 15$.
Are we the only one doing this for projects we like ?
At least, Seth Godin, a well-known marketer, thinks the same way
But in the long term, it can only corrupt the ads system.
And, as Google prevents you to encourage clicks, it is maybe something for Donation Sites like Pledgie to look into, a one click support badge.
My hunch is that ads work well to financially support blogs and pages that lack the funding for hosting, but for open-source projects with even partial corporate support, one of the first things the corporate sponsor can do is remove ads.
This not only makes the project seem more professional and usually pleases users, it also prevents commercial alternatives to the open-source project from purchasing ads on the open-source site.
It’s extremely rare for high-profile open-source projects to have ads, though they may have “platinum/gold/silver” corporate sponsors…
Hi Peter,
That was a bit my points being against it.
Question is, can we change the way ads are seen (not ads but an easy sponsor badge), or can we find a way to sponsor projects that doesn’t require to fill in credit card forms.
I’ve removed ads from my blog, it didn’t feel right to me.
I think a paypal donate badge would feel better and get you more money than ads.
Peace
-stephan
[...] add fuel to my argument I was please to read this post by Yves. They have a pretty successful website that since its inception has attracted 35000 visits [...]
Quotes from me….
“Ad based models will cease to work by 2009″
“Traffic based models will cease to work by 2009″
“Single income stream models will find life difficult in 2009″
A mate of mine is the director of infonews - http://www.infonews.co.nz. I’ve been talking with them for a while now about the rapid decline in advertising and traffic as a valid model. They’ve listened and are putting some new monetization methods into play.
They are onto it and have recognized the demise of the ad model so are doing something about it.
We all need something ‘up our sleeves’ in the coming years.
Go read the “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin and you’ll see what I mean.