So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org Date: 15-May-2007 00:31 Subject: [Citizendium-l] Shop online, support Citizendium To: citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu
Want a book, game, or other merchandise of a sort that you buy online? Then, if you get it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, please order it through us!
See: http://tinyurl.com/29p9on
We get 6% of the price you pay--and that adds up!
Let's give credit where it's due, Nancy Sculerati, Kelly Patterson, and Jason Potkanski have set up affiliate programs with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and have been at work on various aspects of our fundraising efforts. Thanks!
Already, 14 items have been ordered and 8 items shipped from Amazon, which has raised our referral rate (i.e., the percentage of the price you pay that we receive) from 4% to 6%. We've actually received some money already, and we're very glad to have it. We'll announce a dollar amount when we get into four figures.
With luck, we'll have even more fundraising news to announce soon.
--Larry
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On 5/15/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
From what I recall because the amount of money received was sod all.
But that was years ago.
The problem is that we end up in a situation where factors other than usefulness to users may impact people's decision on link placement. It's risky and in some ways worse than adds since ads would be clearly separate from article content.
David Gerard wrote:
So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
- d.
14 books. wow. what a take for one fund drive. -- not! :-)
Jeff
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org Date: 15-May-2007 00:31 Subject: [Citizendium-l] Shop online, support Citizendium To: citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu
Want a book, game, or other merchandise of a sort that you buy online? Then, if you get it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, please order it through us!
See: http://tinyurl.com/29p9on
We get 6% of the price you pay--and that adds up!
Let's give credit where it's due, Nancy Sculerati, Kelly Patterson, and Jason Potkanski have set up affiliate programs with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and have been at work on various aspects of our fundraising efforts. Thanks!
Already, 14 items have been ordered and 8 items shipped from Amazon, which has raised our referral rate (i.e., the percentage of the price you pay that we receive) from 4% to 6%. We've actually received some money already, and we're very glad to have it. We'll announce a dollar amount when we get into four figures.
With luck, we'll have even more fundraising news to announce soon.
--Larry
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Hoi, Look at the numbers .. replace the number of articles that can be read at Citizendium with the number of articles that can be read at Wikipedia... calculate the factor that Wikipedia is bigger then Citizendium.. multiply the number of sales with this factor. Maybe this makes for a different impression of the value of the program.
Thanks, Gerard
On 5/15/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
- d.
14 books. wow. what a take for one fund drive. -- not! :-)
Jeff
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Larry Sanger sanger-lists@citizendium.org Date: 15-May-2007 00:31 Subject: [Citizendium-l] Shop online, support Citizendium To: citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu
Want a book, game, or other merchandise of a sort that you buy online? Then, if you get it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, please order it
through
us!
See: http://tinyurl.com/29p9on
We get 6% of the price you pay--and that adds up!
Let's give credit where it's due, Nancy Sculerati, Kelly Patterson, and Jason Potkanski have set up affiliate programs with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and have been at work on various aspects of our fundraising
efforts.
Thanks!
Already, 14 items have been ordered and 8 items shipped from Amazon,
which
has raised our referral rate (i.e., the percentage of the price you pay
that
we receive) from 4% to 6%. We've actually received some money already,
and
we're very glad to have it. We'll announce a dollar amount when we get
into
four figures.
With luck, we'll have even more fundraising news to announce soon.
--Larry
Citizendium-l mailing list Citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l
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On 15/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
It was trialled years ago, and we got something silly like, ooh, $20 from it. (On the other hand, that *was* years ago, before we discovered traffic...)
There was some grumbling at the time about it, which is why I believe it got dropped - the minimal income wasn't worth annoying people over.
On the other hand, it's worth trying again. Don't put it on mainspace external links*, but put it on the Special:Booksources URL, and see what happens.
Don't put it on mainspace external links*, but put it on the Special:Booksources URL, and see what happens. --
- Andrew Gray
If it's decided to do this, maybe keep the original links at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=9780521405683#Individual_online_booksellers and add the affiliate links clearly marked as such after them.
Many sellers will then ask to be included in that list - what will the minimum requirements be?
[As an aside, how many other wikis use Special:Booksources, and how do you arrange/select its content?]
On 15/05/07, Jack jackdt@gmail.com wrote:
If it's decided to do this, maybe keep the original links at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=9780521405683#Individual_online_booksellers and add the affiliate links clearly marked as such after them.
Many sellers will then ask to be included in that list - what will the minimum requirements be?
The minimum requirements have generally been:
a) can deeplink by ISBN b) offers a reasonable breadth and size of stock c) not spamming
Generally, retailers are preferred over, e.g., single-publisher sales sites. It probably needs cleaned out again - I haven't been through in a while.
On 5/15/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Many sellers will then ask to be included in that list - what will the minimum requirements be?
The minimum requirements have generally been:
a) can deeplink by ISBN b) offers a reasonable breadth and size of stock c) not spamming
I am currently working out a way that might lead to better result pages when it comes to that Booksearch feature in MediaWiki. There will be an announcement (and hopefully some code) soon. Anyone interested in this is of course free to contact me offlist :)
Mathias
On 5/15/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
I think the current ISBN search interface is unlikely to ever generate significant revenue. I had to edit my Monobook.js to even make Amazon.com the default redirect (which I do because of the reviews, not the purchasing option).
But a nice AJAX interface that, among other things, makes it trivial to purchase books (or see reviews) from your preferred seller with a single click could be worth building, as soon as we have the developer resources to devote to it. With some clever UI design, users would be able to change their settings easily, and the defaults could be based on the most common preferences. Why AJAX? Because not all ISBNs are valid, and it may be necessary to perform an on-the-fly database lookup.
Generally speaking, affiliate programs that are - connected to _useful_ features - not exclusive - not specific to a single product, website or service - made transparent to the reader - with reader preferences defining visibility
seem like a reasonable source of funds.
If HTML was allowed on the booksources page this would be fairly easy to implement. The Amazon affiliates code accepts ISBNs and I once modified the book source page on a wiki I run to use Amazon Affiliates. I believe that, while this is an unproven revenue resource, it would be good to trial it as Wikipedia has grown much in traffic and it would not cause much of a bother if it was carefully integrated with the current booksources page.
On 15/05/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 5/15/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
So why are we leaving this money on the table again?
I think the current ISBN search interface is unlikely to ever generate significant revenue. I had to edit my Monobook.js to even make Amazon.com the default redirect (which I do because of the reviews, not the purchasing option).
But a nice AJAX interface that, among other things, makes it trivial to purchase books (or see reviews) from your preferred seller with a single click could be worth building, as soon as we have the developer resources to devote to it. With some clever UI design, users would be able to change their settings easily, and the defaults could be based on the most common preferences. Why AJAX? Because not all ISBNs are valid, and it may be necessary to perform an on-the-fly database lookup.
Generally speaking, affiliate programs that are
- connected to _useful_ features
- not exclusive
- not specific to a single product, website or service
- made transparent to the reader
- with reader preferences defining visibility
seem like a reasonable source of funds.
Peace & Love, Erik
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