Is it bad to try to monetize a people driven startup social media site with ads or selling products? Will this draw less people to the site?

The underlying concept that you're struggling with is trust. Will people trust your new social media startup if it is monetized? It seems odd that huge sites such as Google and Twitter don't display traditional banner advertising.

Why don't these sites display ads? The Answers: 1) Will people trust your new social media startup if it is monetized? Maybe - it depends on your site, your product, and importantly, your users.

The bane of many new (and even old) online companies is that they think they "know" their users. They don't. The best that a CEO, developer, etc can hope for is to have a short glimpse of their users.

For this reason, it is important to use tools like google.com/websiteoptimizer Google's Website Optimizer to preform split testing. In short, tools like these will allow you to integrate ads into your website and show those changes to a small portion of your traffic. This allows you to carefully measure, analyze and maybe even survey how people react to these changes.

Every website is different and every combination of users is different. This is part of the reason why community building is so important. Specific to your advertising concerns, knowing that every website is different and that every group of users is different, you should understand that only through careful testing and analysis can you determine what people will think of advertising and how they will react to it.2) Why don't sites like Google and Twitter display ads?

For different reasons, there is an obvious lack of advertisements on Google, Twitter and a few other popular websites. First off, Google does have ads... and they have lots of them. Their main page (google.

Com) only displays text link ads for Google's other products. They change these ads regularly (expect a Google Wave mention soon) but they only use their powerful index page to advertise their products and services. This is an effective method of self promotion and early on, allowed Google to differentiate itself from Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. On the search engine result pages, Google displays large blocks of ads that people buy from them.

They do accept banner and text ads but only as part of their AdSense program. Sometimes, folks say things like, "there aren't _any_ ads on Google" and that's just not right. Google is made up almost entirely of ads.

Twitter is a creative and interesting company. I say creative because right now, they're trying hard to define how their company implements advertising. http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/does-twitter-hate-advertising.html Biz Stone commented that Twitter simply doesn't like banner advertising.

They have this luxury because they are very well funded. A less vested company would have likely displayed banner ads long ago. Beyond money, I think that Twitter is trying to redefine how advertising and monetization work.

Twitter is one of the first websites to be wildly popular in both traditional and mobile spaces of the Internet. Since they have the luxury of money, it makes sense that they would carefully take their time to pioneer new and interesting ways to display ads. Remember that Google didn't become crazy rich until AdSense and AdWords were released.

3) Some sources and more information. This blog asked the question, "Do Advertisements Affect Traffic? " http://traffikd.com/making-money/do-advertisements-affect-traffic/ The owner carefully monitored the success of ad placements over the course of a month by measuring new subscriptions.

He concluded that there was no affect on subscriptions. This webmaster wondered if placing ads on his site would effect not only his traffic, but the users perception of his site: http://www.webmasterworld.com/webmaster/3984558.htm Communityspark ran an article about this back in 2007. It is still relevant today: http://www.communityspark.com/advertising-choices-affect-your-sites-credibility/ AdAge mentions why measuring only clicks isn't the only metric that you should measure when preforming tests such as split A/B: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=134787 4) Conclusion It might not be a bad idea to ask for the help of a front end designer with real experience in conversion marketing and lead generationSplit A/B testing and care monitoring is very important.

Don't rely on simple metrics such as clicks to determine user acceptance. Develop a combination of elements such as signups, downloads, navigation clicks, and ad clicksOnline, people _expect_ to see ads so if you can "do it classy", your users won't think disparagingly of your startup. In all likelyhood, your traffic will not be negativley affected as long as the ads are appropriate and well implemented.

It depends on how intrusive the advertisements are. If they are small banner ads in an inconspicuous part of the screen, it probably won't bother users. If it's a pop up ad or something with sound or flashing graphics, it may be more annoying than the user is willing to put up with.

Most people these days understand that websites cost money so they will tolerate ads that don't affect the user experience.

In the case of Mahalo ---- it did not start out with google ads on the site -- it was something that was added over time. Since its inception, I believe the traffic on the site has continued to increase, including during the initial start-up when ads were not displayed. I am not sure when the ads actually started to appear.

I have been working in Mahalo's online community since October of 2007, and I don't think ads were added until right before answers was launched. I am not positive on that, but I think it may have been around that time. Mahalo evolved first by adding the social community aspect of the site, then answers, M2, etc.The addition of google ads was a part of this evolution.

As such, I do not think the placement of google ads has adversely affected the site. Do people have statistics on websites that have taken this approach? I'd be curious myself, but am not very familiar with internet traffic and advertising.

I still have much to learn.

I was trying to find some statistics for you from my own personal site shoptimesaver.com - we were running ads for some time but found that ads are not beneficial unless they are relative to the page someone is on... For instance google adsense is not necessarily the best way of getting relative ads to your site.. Also try using image ads instead of text ads, these will appear to be nicer in most cases if you know how to do it you should get more sales for your items and more clicks to the ads.. Check out shopping.com for instance or bizrate.com they are using a lot of ads on there site and they are a great example of this. Now consider the fact that every site is different, if your selling items on your site and you have text ads everywhere you can be sure you will get less sales and make less money from this.. Will this create some type of word of mouth or something else for your site? I highly doubt it.. Users don't necasarily hate ads anymore they have begin to put them to use for them however make sure they are relative and helpful... I hope this helps some... Also my opinion/facts are very biased so don't take everything literal.1 point, keep the ads relative or not at all... Keep it clean or not at all.

Keep it simple like mahalo does. Also mahalo is more of a informational site, so remember shopping sites and mahalo are totally different. Need any more help let me know... Thanks Mike!

It depends on how bad it looks and if you overdo it. Sometimes, it makes a webmaster look desperate.

Website monetization can be tastefully done. You don't have to paste ads all over your site to make money from it. You can put a few discrete and tasteful ads here and there and still pull in the profits Oh and by the way Google is monetized.

They are called adwords ads and appear down the right side of every keyword search page.

Not at all. Money is the blood of the startup - without it startup will be dead. But of course ads shouldn't be annoying.It's normal to pay for products offline why not online?

Google haven't ads? It has right side of the search page, top of the search page. Twitter is still not profitable - it is working on investors money.

And if they will not find the way to monetize traffic they'll be dead. Ads or little fee - not the reason to leave the service or website, bad service, lack of the good ideas - are the reasons. And sometimes you should choose to be an evil (add ads or services for money) but live or die.

Because servers, developers, marketing - worth money. More users you have more money you need.

I don't believe it will keep people from the site. After all look at Facebook, and MySpace, the advertise on each page and there are millions of members. I think the idea of monetizing is a good one, however if possible avoid pop ups or vulgar ads, this way the ads are there but not intrusive.

Honestly, I would stick with ads and possible sales, but not a membership fee. I use many different sites and would not want to have to pay to visit any of them.

I don't think it causes people to stop going to these websites just because you are trying to get additional money to help pay for a website. In my opinion I do back out of a website if it does nothing but pop ups all the time. That is annoying and you can't really look at anything that way.

I don't mind Google Ads being displayed or banners for gifts and stuff. Sometimes I click on them if they are interesting sometimes not.

I think people would rather it be monetized from the start. If you know right off the bat that the advertisments are there, you get used to them. If the site suddenly puts them on people will be annoyed more, I think.

I don't mind at all for a site to make money, especially if it is free for me to use.

Depending on the volume and type of traffic you are getting will determine if you are ready to monetize. Normally I would want to see 1000 pageviews a day before you have the volume to generate decent revenue. Buy sell ads and adsense are my choices when I want monetize.

Just make sure your ads aren't intrusive and relevant usually helps (adsense does this automatically) but shouldn't hurt your traffic if you don't go overboard.

Nothing is free unless the person offering is has either been paid for it, is making enough money for it another way, or is making money by adding something onto what they already started. Google Makes alot of money through their little advertisements, Most social networks that have high traffic it does not take long for the money to add up fast on. The only time I have issues with ads is if their is viruses, they are pops ups, sounds, or some rare coding that prompts a download.. I am more likely to click a text ad with a link than I am any other ad..... I run a site myself so I understand how the expense can be... When just starting it is hard to get new sponsors and advertisers.. Google did it great job, so didn't yahoo.

I rememeber when yahoo used to be nothing but a tiny directory.. with links to other pages.. before they made their search engine.. and started to buy out other services to add to their mix.... How everyone was so mad they brought out geocities webpages.. and now they are closing geocities hosting soon... Answer is No.. But of you offer a paid service make sure its a really reliable service... and if you want to offer like a free webhosting do not do what free servers does say you can put your own ads to make money on your site then they slap their ads on top of yours... If it is done the right way then there will be no issues, and many members.

I don't think so, monetizing a website is not a one way track even the visitors of your website could benefit from advertising. They are inform of what is available. Seeing a website with no ads is not normal.

Internet is a business for services and advertising. Google gives search services, and earn from ads. If the social site is interesting helpful and informative people will always come and the site will grow.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.