[re-sending to list because I forgot to CC] On Jan 9, 2009, at 7:49 AM, Silicon Shaman wrote:
> So here's a thought, suppose a company that does paid surveys pays > DW for the right to put up a fancy poll on a public community page, > which the users fill in and in exchange get paid for their time and > effort in points [or drops or whatevers] Of course the data would > be anonymous we'd track who'd done the poll, but the answers > wouldn't be linked to user names. The consumer survey company would > get a simple framework to 'mine' data within... and without the > cost of creating their own infrastructure. So we could sell the > idea to things like charties or NGO's etc... > > The poll is unobtrusive, the users have to go to it, to fill it in, > so it's not like LJ Ad's. > It stimulates the internal economy of the points system, and > generates a source of money to support the site. > > .Good idea, bad idea? thoughts? I don't like the idea of contracting out something like that -- it seems like it's way too close to the Bad Place in terms of advertising for me, honestly. And LJ has the Peanut Labs surveys that get you gift certificates, but it never really worked out for them, and caused way more problems than it was worth (administrative-end, I mean) -- I think it'd probably be more hassle than benefit. I *could* see this sort of thing fitting into the Dreamwidth ethos if it's specifically not *corporations* chartering opinion polls, but charities or individuals (anything even hinting at corporate sponsorship sets my teeth on edge), but on the whole I think we should put this idea on the "maybe, but likely not" list -- I'd very much like for DW to rely on money coming in from its userbase rather than outside sponsors or third-party interest groups, because the minute you take money from someone else, it introduces weird dynamics in the site's social economy. Both Mark and I are willing to roll the dice and gamble that we're not going to need to turn to third-party money; we have a lot of ideas (a *lot* of ideas) beyond simple "pay for your paid account" to compose an active revenue stream, and we both believe that we can create an active revenue stream healthy enough to support a sustainable business economy that will work with the site's social economy, not against it... --D -- Denise Paolucci [email protected] Dreamwidth Studios: Open Source, open expression, open operations. Coming soon! _______________________________________________ dw-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dwscoalition.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dw-discuss
