Is there any money in forums like this?

[AtW]

I'll know I've made it when the Guardian write about me, eh?

As long as it's not in the obituary section of it.

[tim123]

When was the last time you clicked on a TV ad?

OK, so what's the income from a static advert (that I'm not going to read)

tim

[tim123]

They are trying to make money from job adverts (very, very, very expensive)

195 dollars doesn't look expensive to me.

tim

[AtW]

OK, so what's the income from a static advert (that I'm not going to read)

Depends on readership - some relevant advertisers (from the same field that specialist site is covering) would pay money just to be their advertiser to make news outlet more careful about what they write about their big advertiser. It gives priceless leverage when it is needed most.

This sort of thing can sustain a handful of people, but proper news outlets with thousands employed (like BBC) would probably suffer unless they have got tax revenue or something predictable as this.

[Jog On]

OK, so what's the income from a static advert (that I'm not going to read)

tim

Depends on the traffic volumes of the site/forum. Similar to advertising space in other mediums the advertisers will pay more money for more eyeballs.

A good example is these people being paid 6 figures a month by advertisers for space in their popular facebook apps - the more users of the app and page impressions the more you can charge (plan B anyone?). You can also charge more for more prominent parts of the page.

That's for the pay-per-impression model.

You can also use advertising that pays you an affiliate comission for every sale/lead you generate through the links and banners on your site.

There's also pay-per-click where you can display ads like Google adsense ads that pay you a percentage of the advertisers revenue every time someone clicks on one.

You can also stay in touch with your forum users with a newsletter and promote the odd affiliate program through it.