Okay, I am just free-styling there. But I don't think ads are bad. I ignore maybe 99% of ads, but at the same time, most of the products I own or use I found via ads. A few I have found via interaction on social media, but that is relatively new and very limited. If you can make a business just by being involved in a community, that is wonderful. But aren't you leaving people out who don't know about the community, but who could also benefit from your services?

And I guess that is the big point for me. If you business provides benefit, you should do whatever you can to get the word out to as many people as possible.

I've signed up for the affiliate programs for stuff I really use and found valuable, but haven't implemented the ads on my site yet. Very soon though, as I am trying to avoid the future outcry of “you used to just be a blog and now you're trying to monetize us all you sellout!”

I've done a little with affiliate sales in the past just with people I know either on twitter or in “real life,” and I'm always up front with them. “I really like this product and think it would be great for you. If you do buy from this link, I do get a small kickback as the affiliate.”

For your own stuff it sounds like you are thinking membership site? Down the line I'm definitely planning to have my own products, but I don't think I'll get away from the affiliate stuff completely. Seems like the classic Office “win-win-win” negotiation. The producer of the product gets a sale, I get a kickback, my reader gets an awesome product, and we all feel good about helping each other… Precious…

Thanks for adding that to this conversation Chris. This conversation has been more interesting for me than the original post anyway.

The Jason Fried example is timely and appropriate for this conversation, thanks for bringing that up. Get Satisfaction just upgraded some of its premium plans, but in doing so took away two options from it's free plans (http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2010/02/24/ahem… ).

The issue of dealing with upset “customers” could have been completely avoided if they would have kept their free options as stripped down as possible in the beginning. Considering the circumstances, and that it's tough to predict how markets will respond to your offerings, I think they're doing the right thing.

Thanks for commenting.

I think part of the problem is so many bloggers are fearful of taking the steps to make money. Whether it's a confidence issue or what I don't know, but I fall into the Jason Fried camp of if you have a product, service, etc. you should start charging on Day 1. It's often too hard to get people to upgrade later after they've been receiving it for free.

Obviously depending on the product/service/business model it can get a lot more complex than that, but I think that's a valid rule of thumb and obviously one that's made him successful in his career thus far.

But like what Bradford said above and what I was talking about with all the information being aggregated online through social networks, I do believe that “blast ads” or mass advertising is a dead-end form of online advertising, being replaced by targeted advertising and strategies that “pull” rather than “push”.

And you made the point of how that reduces the amount of users and market share for online businesses/platforms to make money with. To me, this only means that you have to be savvier in your advertising delivery to still make money.

For one, I truly believe developing and optimizing your online business to be accessible on mobile devices is going to be huge for any business, be it an online business or a brick-and-mortar store. Geo-based marketing offers the opportunity to reach a very specific demographic that is very valuable, even if it has less reach.

Putting a paywall on a service or platform is generally a death sentence, I believe. Unless a service is very very very unique, people typically shift to similar platforms once the accessibility requires a fee. There is still opportunity to create revenue with advertising through online businesses and platforms as long as they change with the tides of social communications. The standard ad-based model is dead, yes. Developers just need to create revenue through other advertising methods with their online businesses (sponsorships, webcasts, geo-based targeted marketing, etc.).

The consumer still has wants and needs, we just have to cater to them on a personable level with smarter strategies. Pull, not push. And with dialogue, not monologue.

So now that we're on the same page, I think that you're exactly right in saying that for business promotion the issue is how “traditional and non-traditional advertising will be aligned together in the future of business communications, rather than which model will prevail.”

However, what I'm standing up against in this post is creating a business (read: platform) in which the primary source of revenue is from other people paying to advertise on the platform I own. I think that turns us all into neo-billboard owners and ignores how communities interact.

Am I making an sense with the point I'm trying to make? Am I all wet here?

I think it will be important to focus the future of online advertising with community-oriented tactics. And I'm not meaning community-oriented as in “online community”, but rather, for the good of the community, be it online or off.

I hope Im making sense with my brain-dump there, let me know if I'm not :p

The model you're talking about is *far* better than the standard ad model. I'm actually offering free space here for those businesses that I can stand behind–but then again, I'm not making any money off of those (nor do I hope to in the future).

The reason that I'm hesitant to commit to affiliate ads is that I'm still stuck in the traffic problem…I have to sell people on the value of coming to my site, using my site, and then on the value of buying those products.

What seems to make more sense to me is selling them on the value of my product and charging them a fee to use it.

What do you think? Are you using any affiliate ads now?

I also hear you when you say that too many are trying to cram traditional tactics down non-traditional holes, but how are you thinking about non-traditional advertising? Other than the relational type of social media interaction, how do you see social communicators creating and using non-traditional advertising?

(Please don't read those questions in a malicious way, I really am curious how you see this…)