My concern - that my links wont get placed enough. What if there arent enough sites related to mine in the catagory?
Same issue for languages. If ads are restricted to same language sites, our Polish and Dutch friends etc. will loose the entire benefit of the coop. But it's not implemented yet so it's a worry for the future. If the catagories stay pretty broad at first, there will be enough adspace to cater for the english ads.
I'm not sure what Shawn has in mind, but it would be interesting to have a ratio of in-category/out-of-category ad serving. So, maybe 80% of your weight could go to in-category pages, and the remaining 20% goes Network wide.
I wish you had the option to only show a certain theme on your site. I have a hardcore business themed website and then you see an ad for Hilary Duff, not good. I actualy don't care if my ad is displayed on an off-topic website. I don't believe that google really cares either, even though everybody says they do. I think it's a rumor. Just do a search for "ebay".
Personally, I don't agree. Outbound links do play a roll (albiet small - IMO) Look, If you have a business site, then don't run the Coop on it - simple as that. The changes are going to be made (Clearly), but if you are really concerned about the impact that the Coop has on your site, then my best suggestion would be for you not to run the ads on it. Stick to running the Coop on crappy sites if you are really that worried about the impression the links give you visitors. Just my $0.02
I wouldn't use the ebay example as far as theming goes. Ebay is a fairly wide field and can be applied to just about any site. I would think that theming would benefit everyone from an SEO standpoint simply because the links are relevent and benefit your visitors. I guess there's really only one way to find out, and that's to test it with the FREE ad network.