advertising on LMH

[Alan Knighting]

It can’t have been easy for him but I think Paolo has done an excellent job in protecting this Forum from those who come here with purely commercial interests.

Many a time Forum members are looking for answers to problems and questions which can only properly be answered by professional people. Sometimes those professional people honour the rules of the Forum and freely give their advice or conduct correspondence through PM’s. Unfortunately there’s always the element which sees the Forum simply as a free marketing tool and Paolo gives them very short shrift.

Those who find favour with me are those who enter into the day-to-day conversation of the Forum but, at the same time, include their “professional” identity within their signatures.

On balance I am not in favour of having a “Commercial Section”. I look at the 40-50 new messages a day in my e-mail Spam folder and imagine the possibility of all those people joining the “Commercial Section” of YHM. The mind boggles. I know I could ignore them but the easiest thing to ignore is what is not there.

I think we have a lovely Forum. For me it works beautifully just as it is. I don’t think it needs a “Commercial Section” - I know I don’t.

Alan

[ravetildon]

i agree a forum that doesn't allow commercial posts must have been a long uphill battle.

It's doing awesome tho, with or without the commercial section.

[Garri]

Paolo, one solution would be to section the commercialism off into a separate directory, perhaps using the phpLD script to automate it.

Then, you could categorise the directory how you want. Don't let people list for free, so it will only attract serious advertisers. You give people what they want and help pay for the running costs of the forum, which aren't free.

I've come to like directories and recently experimented with listing on Delightfulblogs.com, which drives a small but steady stream of visitors.

[Jimbo]

Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) talking about how Facebook will develop alongside advertising content:

Because so much of our society has some commercial component, it seems like there will be a way to both share information and line that up with what advertisers want. Some amount is already happening as advertisers pay to accelerate that distribution of information. The amount they’d be willing to pay is proportional to how much it is accelerated.

Whether 'sharing' and 'advertising' can co-exist together on LMH to mutual advantage is an open question. But once the genie's out of the bottle, it may prove impossible to stuff him back in again.

Jim

[paolo]

I am listening to your views, they are being added to the pot of indecision.

[enid]

they are being added to the pot of indecision.

bet my pot's bigger than yours!!

I wouldn't change the format of the forum - for me it does what it says on the tin.

[Garri]

bet my pot's bigger than yours!!

I've got one of those 12 foot paella pans, it's shallow but you'd be surprised how much you can get in it!

I'm of the opinion that the forum shouldn't change by incorporating ads which is why I feel the separate directory is the route to explore. Also, you can have a rating system for the directory and people can comment on listings (if you look at the Delightfulblogs model)

Sure, that's open to abuse and needs to be policed, but if you have a sizeable number of paying advertisers you could get someone to moderate the directory for you.

[vrooje]

Please add me to the "don't change a thing" side of the pot...
...mostly.

I'm not too keen on the idea of a commercial section that we can all just ignore. If we're all going to ignore it, why would anyone pay to advertise there? And if they're not paying to advertise there, how is that really any different than spam (which we'd be encouraging)?

Plus, I generally check the forum by using the link on the home page that searches for all new posts since my last visit. Posts from a commercial section would be mixed in with all the others and I'd have to filter them out manually each time. Certainly not impossible, just a small hassle -- every single time I visit the forum.

Perhaps you could prevent that with a PHP script. But if you did that, then the value of the advert would go down. And then financial reward to offset running costs is no longer the driving force behind this. Then it becomes about exposing us to services we might not have otherwise seen.

Could someone who is in favor of this give an example of a service we'd be unlikely to discover without a "Commercial" section of the forum? My guess is that we do a good job of finding the worthwhile offerings anyway (though I could be wrong, because naturally we don't know what we haven't discovered).

One thing I would be in favor of is some extra income for Paolo by showing Google ads -- with a catch. I've seen places where the ads only show up when you're not signed in; so lurkers would see the ads, but those of us who always browse while signed in wouldn't have a different forum experience than we do right now.

[Garri]

Google ads are crass unless they're in the context of search, they would be a waste of time in the context of the forum, in my opinion.

Could someone who is in favor of this give an example of a service we'd be unlikely to discover without a "Commercial" section of the forum? My guess is that we do a good job of finding the worthwhile offerings anyway (though I could be wrong, because naturally we don't know what we haven't discovered).

Directories can be a useful way of organising the 'offerings' for quick retrieval. Featured listings could then be randomly displayed in the forum as an incentive to advertise and as reminder that there's a directory should anyone wish to peruse it.

[vrooje]

I don't know anything about serving ad content from Google, so I'll defer to you on that, Garri... you're saying that Paolo wouldn't see any benefit from showing ads on the Forum?

Directories can be a useful way of organising the 'offerings' for quick retrieval. Featured listings could then be randomly displayed in the forum as an incentive to advertise and as reminder that there's a directory should anyone wish to peruse it.

Yes, I agree -- but that doesn't answer my question.

[Garri]

Yes, I agree -- but that doesn't answer my question.

Brooke, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that advertising isn't just about raising awareness for products and services, it's also about reminding us that those services and products exist.

The Google ads route is a personal thing for me and I wouldn't want to tarnish any websites I own with them, I'd much rather be in control of who advertises on my sites. They don't think they would offer any value to anyone here, whereas I feel a directory would.

I should also point out that I display Google ads only in the context of search results. If Paolo chose to go the directory route then why not, over time, insert a custom Google search engine for the directory and use Google ads in that context.

After 5 years, he may reach the designated $50 he needs to reach before they remit payment, assuming he can remember his login datails by then

[Richard D]

I am listening to your views, they are being added to the pot of indecision.

Paolo, Why don't you put it up for a vote in the members only section ? One member. One vote. This way you won't get to feel bad if it all turns pear shaped

Personally I like the Forum as it is - I mean, if theres a product out there that that one member thinks may be of benefit to others then he/she can mention it in a thread. If someone tries to advertise on the site then they get ripped apart - it's part of what makes the site fun to visit !

[Garri]

If someone tries to advertise on the site then they get ripped apart - it's part of what makes the site fun to visit !

Good point! I hadn't thought of that aspect

[paolo]

Personally I like the Forum as it is - I mean, if theres a product out there that that one member thinks may be of benefit to others then he/she can mention it in a thread.

This is pretty much how I feel about it. We found out about rentability this way. We could have found out about it sooner from a commercial section, but would we have paid it any attention in that context?

A commercial section is something I envisaged as being useful for established companies who want to tell us something new is happening, or start-ups who, for example, want to invite beta testers in exchange for free advertising. I thought I could leverage this demand on the part of these companies by either charging them the same annual fee they charge for a standard ad (which means those that can afford to pay the most, pay the most), or by requiring a link from somewhere prominent (the homepage in the case of freebies).

I didn't want to have a commercial section just to invite unprovable advertising from all comers, rather something that has potential value for members, like the above two examples.

But a problem would be all the snake oil salesmen who promise to be ranked number one on Google, etc. I know we are all grown-ups and can make up our own minds, but actually not everyone is able to make an informed judgement in the murky world of marketing and SEO. Untenable claims published within the context of Lay My Hat would lend those claims credence. I would not want to be constantly disputing what can and can't be posted in what is an 'anything goes' section.

When we have discussed this in the past, there were some people in favour - it would be good to hear from you here.

[ravetildon]

I'm all for a section for companies/portals to give renters a free one year listing in exchange for being able to post in a commercial section on the board.