Plugin request - Ad Management
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txcas

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Plugin request - Ad Management
« on January 23rd, 2014, 05:54 PM »
I provide a free forum for about 1,700 users.  The only way I can afford that is because of Google Ads, so I would like to request an Ad Management plugin for Wedge.

Wanchope

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Aaron Smith

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Nao

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #3, on January 23rd, 2014, 10:24 PM »
None of the original usual plugin authors are active anymore. They've all left to greener or browner pastures.

I could write such a plugin but it would take me some time. And since its goal is to make you money, it would make sense that I sell it. But then I'd feel obligated to make it an excellent plugin. And this would give me less time to work on Wedge.

That's a problem. For sure.

Plus I'll have to admit. I don't believe in Google ads. They don't make you a 1/10th of the money Google earns thanks to you.

txcas

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #4, on January 23rd, 2014, 11:56 PM »
Thanks Nao.  The plugin does not make me any money, we use it to recover the costs of hosting the forum.  If I wanted to make money I would activate paid subscriptions, but that is not what I am trying to do.  I am just trying to provide a free forum for my users and so far ads are paying the bill.  I am with you, I don't like Google Ads, but as bad as they are it is the best option out there.  I will be willing to pay for a good ad management plugin just like I paid for Aeva Media.

Pandos

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #5, on January 24th, 2014, 12:05 AM »
Hmm..
I think this is one of the "must have" plugins.
Will look into it. Should not be so hard to do.


# dpkg-reconfigure brain
error: brain is not installed or configured

Nao

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #6, on January 24th, 2014, 12:09 AM »
Pandos, are you suggesting I shouldn't write the plugin, and/or not sell it? :whistle:
(Well, I really suck at selling myself, don't I..?)
Quote from txcas on January 23rd, 2014, 11:56 PM
Thanks Nao.  The plugin does not make me any money, we use it to recover the costs of hosting the forum.  If I wanted to make money I would activate paid subscriptions, but that is not what I am trying to do.  I am just trying to provide a free forum for my users and so far Ads are paying the bill.  I am with you, I don't like Google Ads, but as bad as they are it is the best option out there.
There's also a bill for Wedge... After 6.5 man-years of unpaid, full-time work, it's time to really consider my options. Not only did we not get paid, but we spent our personal money on Wedge. Hosting is okay because it's offered by alwaysdata. But even the domain name cost me a lot, because of its rarity. Add to that the fact that I stopped all other activities that could actually make me money. The only thing that ever made me money in the forum world was Aeva Media 2.x, and *even that* is given away for free in Wedge. (It's not even as an incentive to switch to Wedge... It's just that I don't see why I should make people pay for something I haven't worked much on for the last 3 years.)

So, yeah, I have to find a way to monetize Wedge, otherwise it won't be realistic for me to keep working on it forever. And I don't trust anyone to take the lead of development work.
For now, I'm leaning towards doing some kind of Paypal subscription, à la SMF, where you get a badge and other goodies. But even that will never bring enough money to sustain my family™. I guess we'll see how it unfolds. For now, I'm focused on releasing a stable 1.0. For free. :geek:

PS: if it's not too obvious, I took the day off from Wedge today. Still, I managed to make a couple of nice commits and improve the github import script.

Pandos

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #7, on January 24th, 2014, 12:27 AM »Last edited on January 24th, 2014, 12:35 AM
Sorry Nao, wasn't my intention. But your answer sounds to me like that you're not want to make it.  :angel:
It's up to you.
I really would suggest you to make this a paid plugin, because it's one of the most wanted features in communitys.
My plan was to make a simple and quick plugin to display advertisements inbetween topics and/or in sidebar.

Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #8, on January 24th, 2014, 12:28 AM »Last edited on January 24th, 2014, 12:36 AM
BTW...
Google reavenue isn't so bad....
It's only the guys that are using Adblock ;)


Enjoy your day off  :eheh:

Norodo

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #9, on January 24th, 2014, 01:20 AM »
Make a paid advert module man. It seems like a good idea for everyone. :)

(That is, everyone except for people like me who would rather you work on Wedge, because we don't advertise on our forums.)

But for you and the adverts gang, it's a win win!

txcas

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #10, on January 24th, 2014, 03:53 AM »
Quote from Nao on January 24th, 2014, 12:09 AM
So, yeah, I have to find a way to monetize Wedge, otherwise it won't be realistic for me to keep working on it forever. And I don't trust anyone to take the lead of development work.
I totally understand.  It is a tough act to balance when it is a one man show.  May I suggest you look at Woocommerce's monetization model?  They provide a free plugin for Wordpress that provides ecommerce functionality.  They don't make any money on the core product, but they make the money on the themes and plugins that add extra functionality to Woocommerce.  They provide some plugins for free and they charge for others.  They also made it so other developers could make money by selling their own plugins.  That is a win-win scenario since it increases the product functionality, thus its adoption.  That is just a suggestion.

Nao

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #11, on January 24th, 2014, 11:49 PM »
Quote from Pandos on January 24th, 2014, 12:27 AM
Sorry Nao, wasn't my intention. But your answer sounds to me like that you're not want to make it.  :angel:
Yes, I don't want to make one.
I don't believe in non-custom advertisements on forums. Not only that, but I value the user's privacy, and I hate that Google has tracking cookies for their ads.

But I also think that the first person who should be making money over Wedge (or any parts related to Wedge) is me. Charity begins at home. Especially after all these years of working in the dark. I don't want someone coming in, discovering about Wedge, porting their commercial SMF mods in a day or two, and posting them here to sell. Not only will I remove these posts (unless I'm being notified of any commercial intentions prior to them being posted, in which case I'll consider the matter), but I'll be very upset.

Hmm, oh well, why not do this: I've enabled two subscriptions, 'Donation' and 'Patronage'. They differ in the $$ amount, mostly. If you feel like donating a little something, you can choose the amount by way of group duration. I'll see how it goes. Maybe it'll be enough.
You should be able to find the subscription links in your profiles.
Quote from Pandos on January 24th, 2014, 12:27 AM
It's up to you.
I really would suggest you to make this a paid plugin, because it's one of the most wanted features in communitys.
My plan was to make a simple and quick plugin to display advertisements inbetween topics and/or in sidebar.
A silly question first.... Do you actually know how to build a plugin? Did you ever build one, at all..?

Pandos

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #12, on January 25th, 2014, 12:51 AM »
Quote from Nao on January 24th, 2014, 11:49 PM
A silly question first.... Do you actually know how to build a plugin? Did you ever build one, at all..?
Don't underestimate my skills.
And also I've had enough time and I'm really involved to get to know the way Wedge works.
If I could'nt do so, I'd never shout out.
Quote
But I also think that the first person who should be making money over Wedge (or any parts related to Wedge) is me. Charity begins at home. Especially after all these years of working in the dark. I don't want someone coming in, discovering about Wedge, porting their commercial SMF mods in a day or two, and posting them here to sell. Not only will I remove these posts (unless I'm being notified of any commercial intentions prior to them being posted, in which case I'll consider the matter), but I'll be very upset.
That is your legal right and I can fully understand you!
For that see my last PM.. Think I'm ways ahead from you at marketing.
Quote
Hmm, oh well, why not do this: I've enabled two subscriptions, 'Donation' and 'Patronage'. They differ in the $$ amount, mostly. If you feel like donating a little something, you can choose the amount by way of group duration. I'll see how it goes. Maybe it'll be enough.
You should be able to find the subscription links in your profiles.
Good idea!
Perhaps you should integrate the donation request in the blurb.

Nao

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #13, on January 27th, 2014, 10:40 AM »
I don't underestimate your skills. To be specific, I underestimated your skills for a long time because you didn't show them off, but you've seen proved that you can be very dedicated to your current task (if anything, the German translation is nothing short of impressive -- you pulled it off from scratch in a couple of weeks, IIRC..?), I just wasn't aware until recently that you had programming skills. Just call it 'ignorance' from me, I think it's neither more nor less than that. ;)

As for the ad management plugin, perhaps we could both work on it, under the Wedge Team flag. (i.e., a 'wedge:ads' plugin.) Maintain it on Bitbucket together in a private repo, and then when we're happy with it, either release it for free, or do something related to member groups.

Re: your PMs, I'm just at a loss right now... :whistle: I need some time to answer them. (Plus all of the other outstanding PMs I have.)

Pandos

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Re: Plugin request - Ad Management
« Reply #14, on January 27th, 2014, 01:49 PM »
Quote from Nao on January 27th, 2014, 10:40 AM
I don't underestimate your skills. To be specific, I underestimated your skills for a long time because you didn't show them off, but you've seen proved that you can be very dedicated to your current task (if anything, the German translation is nothing short of impressive -- you pulled it off from scratch in a couple of weeks, IIRC..?), I just wasn't aware until recently that you had programming skills. Just call it 'ignorance' from me, I think it's neither more nor less than that. ;)
Was about 2 Weeks to do it from scratch :)
Ignorance... Hmm. Sometimes I felt pissed off that you didn't want to get contributors, because after Pete has left I ask you where I can help and started to code the thingy with select of index Types, boards, Blogs and articles. This was rejected by you because you want to redesign the Admin-Panel first and then you did it by yourself : )
No problem at all, because my way to implement the index change wan't that well considering the update thingy.
Since you're the "ayatolla of coding guidelines"  :lol: :lol: I've invested a lot of time to get familar with your code :)
And I can live with that fact, that perhaps my code will be changed by you.
Quote
As for the ad management plugin, perhaps we could both work on it, under the Wedge Team flag. (i.e., a 'wedge:ads' plugin.) Maintain it on Bitbucket together in a private repo, and then when we're happy with it, either release it for free, or do something related to member groups.
I've already created a folder under my local plugins repository with the name: WeAds, before you claimed to be the one who write this plugin. Naming is funny, isn't it? :eheh:
So for that I'm fine with that.
We should determine what exactly should be displayed. I would prefer three main sections:
Fullbanner (at the top of the page)
Skyscraper (on the right)
Medium Rectangle (in sidebar or inbetween topics).
Google allows only to display three banner at the same time. OK, if you're on DFP the limit is 4.
Must give it a talk to determine the way.
Quote
Re: your PMs, I'm just at a loss right now... :whistle: I need some time to answer them. (Plus all of the other outstanding PMs I have.)
No problem. I can wait.