google ads

[UKFlounder]

I like the site without ads, FWIW. I think it's fine as is, but that's just one opinion.

[RedlegJake]

I agree with the idea in principle. The white space is just wasted and I think most members are used to ads just about everywhere they go on the net. I know they wouldn't bother me at all. Why not a trial as suggested? I'd give it 90 days though to get a better idea and so different methods could be tried. There are several ways to implement google ads and each works better on different types of sites depending on traffic levels and types of visitors. It could certainly earn enough, I'd think, to pay for the bandwidth, upgrades to the platform, server fees. Avatars are cool but revenue trumps that I think.

[RBA]

Copyrighted material should probably be removed anyhow.

[smith288]

My biggest concern is that I believe we would have to remove all copyrighted content (i.e. avatars) before doing anything that would bring in revenue, such as ads.

I think there is a fair use type of law for websites. You arent benefitting monetarily from anyone's avatar.

I also dont think Scott Adams or United Sydicate artists have a history of suing sites such as yours for avatars like TRFs dilbert ont.

The only thing that would happen if a company/representative wanted something copywrited removed would be a friendly notification of the violation and request to remove it. To which wouldnt be very hard.

Kind of making a mountain out of a mole hill in regards to all this stuff. If you look around other forums, they are laden with logos and other imagery that is copywrited from their respective team and have continued on without legal ramifications.

Putting up links to illegal wares, MP3, movies and other types of works however WILL get your site in trouble but I don't believe you have to worry about this.

The only thing in question is newpaper articles on the web. Many times a media company doesnt like to have an entire news article elsewhere. I think legally, you can excerpt it and link to the real article like they do at Buckeyeplanet.com.

BTW, adsense doesnt work as well as you would think for forums as nichey as this one. We get a constant flow of repeat visitors who arent likely to click on a contextual ad like google or yahoo.

You would be better off going with an affiliate system like commission junction or something like that to appeal to our tastes rather than let google guess.

Just saying...

[Boss-Hog]

Thanks for the input, everyone...much appreciated.