guys, i have an idea which i would like your opinion. i would like to setup an ads server, something like google adsense. but this wont be a profit making venture with advertisers and stuff, but it will be advertisements for open source projects. open source project owners can advertise free(or maybe a small fee, very small to prevent fraud or spammers). webmasters who have space can apply to help advertise these open source projects. especially those webmasters using open source software for this websites/forums and so on. something to give back to the open source community. maybe using phpadsnew to deliever the ads. what do you think ?
U mean the cost of the ad servers ? Well, we hope to get support from sponsors, but we really dont have to worry about that until we get big or popular enough.
Have you tried mambo or joomla - nearly the same anyway. They are working on adserver software modules. Some basic programs are already available. Easy to use. ...and it doesn't eat up your bandwith ...
Why would people want to advertise on their site, lose potential customers and so forth - for no reason?
Well, for a good cause - supporting Open Source Projects. And ads sometimes isnt exactly a bad thing, especially if we can ensure the ads are of acceptable quality. I am not sure how would this cause the webmaster to lost potential customers ? We are definitely not aiming for commerical sites. What we need is very likely an dedicated ads server, whose main purpose is to serve ads to webmasters throughout the internet. Of course that is if this idea becomes a success.
If I want to recommend a certain open source project, I will do so. But I won't use precious screen real estate for advertisements for whatever project that might come along. I wouldn't use that service.
Yes, not many webmasters will be willing to part their webspace without anything in return. Convincing them otherwise is an uphill task.