This is an idea purely for the business/sales forums.

Being able to pay gold coins in order to create a sticky/storefront on the forums, much like "featured" advertising. I figure this could be useful because gold coins will come exclusively by placing on the charts or (when the site goes live) paying for them.

Perhaps, just like regular advertising, this would need to be renewed rather than be a one-time thing? That would be to just prevent something along the lines of the first two pages on the forums being nothing but stickies. Though, depending on how popular this site gets, it may only waylay that kind of outcome. I dunno.

I'll admit it's kind of a half-baked idea, but I figure I'd toss it out there just to see what people think.

Some sites have columns on the side that people can pay to advertise them. I'm not sure how they work coding wise... But I think something like that rather than forums would be a good idea. If we had a live chat column on one side, and user advertisements that would be pretty neat.

But as for the first page of the forums I think that may get crowded, how long would they last? Could people get more than one? Would there be a limit to the amount of threads that can be up? Would it be fair to people who pay and are bopped out if it fills if there is such a limit?

I would rather it be on a column with a few pages showing at once and refreshing with each new page. Everyone will see them so you will get your monies worth. They could be called "billboards" or something.

I like the idea of having it perhaps on the side. But I wonder what would occur if the site came to rely on actual banner ads for revenue/overhead - how would that work out? Though, arguably, these serve much the same purpose, if we're paying for the coins.

I would figure one per account would be enough for anyone, though, just so that people couldn't potentially monopolize the space.

I honestly hadn't thought about something like a limit - do you have any ideas on a number? The idea of cycling ads would theoretically raise the cap I think, since you're not viewing them all at once. But it should still be somewhat limited, so that the pool isn't so large that no one gets any effective "face time". I'd say it would all depend on the ad size and complexity - but perhaps something like 30 slots? It would have to be something relatively exclusive to the amount of users on the site, but not so exclusive that it becomes impractical.

I figure if there was a limit though, the best way to avoid getting bopped is to make a deadline for a month to month thing. If you don't or can't make the deadline, you have to wait until the next deadline to submit the ad and payment.

Well say there could be three to four ads displayed at a time. And there happened to be 300 ads at that time. It would refresh each time the user loaded a page.

Perhaps to cut back on the ads, and to make them more relevant to users people could choose categories that are preset.

For instance you pick a breed or gene, or item, whether you are looking to buy or sell, and maybe some other keywords. And people can select which keywords they are interested in on their account settings. That way people don't have to see puma ads if they want unicorns.

This opens up a bunch more with coding though, so I'm sure if this idea were implemented it would be a long way down the road.

However to simplify things you could pay for a ad and have the deadlines like you suggested.

yeah, keywording and stuff like that I imagine to be a pain to code.

I just thought it would be useful since Angel's specifically said that premium items will be interface-based and since things like bumping posts are prohibited on the forums it would be useful instead of having to make new threads over and over.

It would be so useful, not being able to bump, or having a bump button is sort of annoying...

Have you seen the system they have on Gryffs for advertising?

Most sites that have "advertising spotlights" don't handle it very well.

Columns get flooded out by new ads or vanish too fash for people's liking. It's also apparently hard on the database to make and use stuff like this.

When advertising threads get sticked people learn to just skip to page two or whatever to see the rest. This is because the first page always is overtaken by sponsors.

The only way I have not seen it handled is to have a "sponsored advertising" forum. When a post is moved there it is given an expiration date. This causes the post to delete (or lock) when time is up. With less competition the sponsors get more attention without flooding out the other equally nice things for sale by non-sponsors.