Open Source Advertising Marketplace

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Guy Snir
Filed Under Open Source, .NET, Enterprise, Business |

It happened again… This time The Lounge did it. Well, at least this time my idea is a little broader, so I can still suggest some things.

I was thinking of creating a marketplace for Open Source advertising. This would be similar to current online advertising websites and affiliate websites, with a twist.

My vision for this marketplace is:

The idea behind the “points” system, is to encourage Open Source projects to promote other Open Source projects.
The payment option for points is the revenue model for the marketplace.

I would probably use Openads for a task like this (although I have not tried it out yet)

I hope that The Lounge (or someone else) will use this or a similar approach; anyway you do it, if it helps promoting Open Source projects - I am happy.

Guy

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Comments

3 Responses to “Open Source Advertising Marketplace”

  1. kevin on July 23rd, 2007 9:15 am

    thx for covering The Lounge. Some points that may be of interested.

    I like your points idea but that’s not the route we’re going.

    We’re not CPC. We don’t even track clicks - we do see pageviews so that’s something we could use as “points”. We wanted the code to be as non-intrusive as possible while also maximizing/influencing SEO rankings for the “advertisers” (which in this case are open source projects) via direct links (no redirects, ajax, etc)

    We’re CPI (cost per influence based). Our goal is to have the best sites, with the best content publishers, and introduce products/advertisers to these groups of sites that only the publishers support, use, or would use. So, we don’t take just any advertiser. The publishers have to agree first.

    I built The Lounge and the reporting using SubSonic. OpenAds looks amazing but is a bit much for an ad network of this size.

    And I only have one room (network) open so far - the .net open source room. But more rooms will come soon. I’m very dedicated to open source (I’m on the Subtext,SubSonic,DotNetKicks, and Subskimet projects) as well as building out my own open source blog engine ScribeSonic. So it’s something I’m passionate about.

    If The Lounge doesn’t even take off…I still will keep the open source room open.

    As far as the open source room is concerned. I’m starting with .net but I plan to move onto other frameworks as well (java, php, etc, etc).

    The open source projects don’t pay anything to participate. I just need an email and have to review the project briefly. If it has a vibrant community and is being used by some people - then I don’t see why I wouldn’t include it in the room.

    Thanks again!

  2. Guy Snir on July 23rd, 2007 12:55 pm

    Hi Kevin,

    Interesting concept, I am glad you are doing this!

    I added your code to this blog, hope to help a little with spreading the word…

    Guy

  3. kevin on July 23rd, 2007 1:26 pm

    i saw in my logs! thanks so much! love your blog btw…now a subscriber.