Thoughts on Commercial Affiliates

from the thinking-outloud dept

So, I'm not exactly sure why, but over the past few months I've been receiving more and more requests to do various "affiliations" with commercial sites. Being a business guy I have nothing against commercialism, but my idea for Techdirt was that it was to remain a somewhat "neutral site". However, with all the requests coming in, I'm wondering if I'm just being stubborn. I figured I'd post this publicly and see if anyone reading the site (since you folks are the ones who matter anyway) had any thoughts on the matter. Feel free to comment below or to send it to me as feedback.
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  1. identicon
    eric fader, 21 Dec 1999 @ 6:28pm

    commercial techdirt

    Hey its America and you are a capitalist. Basically I wouldn't mind as long as the advertising doesn't become a major piece of the interface. I would highly suggest keeping the existing site interface as it loads fast and is visually appealing. Maybe give it a try on the email digest version first and see what happens.

    There must be a direct distinction between commentary and advertising. Without that, techdirt woudl be selling out.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike (profile), 21 Dec 1999 @ 7:04pm

    Re: commercial techdirt

    Okay... clarification... I'm not necessarily talking about advertising or even making money off the site, but rather some how linking to or pointing to specific sites, which may or may not be useful to the reading public of Techdirt. I think my problem is that I don't necessarily feel comfortable being partial to one particular site, so if I do choose one, I'll feel compelled to work with a lot of sites, and I'm not sure how well that would work.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Wonko, 21 Dec 1999 @ 7:49pm

    Your call

    Here's my suggestion: Have fun. Do whatever the heck you feel like doing. Maybe try linking to commercial sites for a while. See if you like the feeling. If you don't, then drop the links. No big deal. It's your site. Make it what you want. :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Ryan, 21 Dec 1999 @ 7:57pm

    Re: commercial techdirt

    I don't think there's anything wrong with linking or with advertising. I guess the one advantage with linking is that it may channel more traffic into techdirt if the linking partner also links to techdirt.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Pu Qimeng, 21 Dec 1999 @ 8:51pm

    Commercial links on techdirt?

    Two points:
    1.) The bad thing about paid links, affiliated sites etc. is that they are not neccessarily the sites you would recommend without the sponsorship. Your principle should always be (and I believe in the long run this pays most) to send your visitors to the BEST sites, to the sites you would recommend personally - independently whether they pay you or not. The neutral nature of techdirt is for sure some of its biggest values.

    2.) However, if you want to enter paid and affiliate relationship with other sites I would clearly state this and have those links completly separated from the other content, maybe a box of

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Zebulun, 22 Dec 1999 @ 2:04pm

    linking or banners?

    Big difference to me.

    If it's linking, go for it.
    I've found running a news site
    is hard when one avoids banners
    or advertising but I continue to
    do it.

    How about a links page or something
    similar, seperate from the main page
    for sponsors, affiliates, and other
    worthy sites?

    you could even use small to medium
    banners there. An example would be
    fucker.com's

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Zebulun, 22 Dec 1999 @ 2:09pm

    Re: linking or banners?

    (script keeps eating my message in preview)

    funnel of fuckers:
    http://www.fucker.com/fuckers/we_love/index.html
    or glassdog.com's "advert" or glassdog.net
    -Zebulun

    link to this | view in thread ]


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