Bits du Jour New Syndication Program (Partner Program)

[Renegade]

This is really just very very cool. BDJ has a new partner program where you can put software deals on your own site!

I interviewed Nico (he owns BDJ) about this for the .NET Preacher Show -- Monetizing Web Sites Without Traditional Ads - Interview with Nico Westerdale

I'm NOT big on serving ads at any of my web sites, but this seems to add real value to a site and is a definite service to people.

If you've got a web site, definitely check this out! (But buy your software at the .NET Preacher site! --- Just kidding!)

Mouser, I think this is something that you may really want to have a look at for more than a couple reasons.

[mouser]

I had a really nice conversation with Bits Du Jour a couple of weeks ago.  Nico seemed like a really nice guy.

They even showed me a nice mockup of set of pages showing how Bits Du Jour could look integrated with DonationCoder pages and it looked really really nice.

I tried to get them to let us pass along the affiliate/commission fees to our members purchasing the programs instead of paying them to us, but that didn't really work for them, i guess mainly because it would make other affiliate customers seem like less of a good deal, which may make some sense.  If we could have arranged that, then i think it's something we would have been inclined to do.

Because it is our policy not to engage in arrangements where we make money off people purchasing certain programs, I decided to decline on behalf of DC to participate in the Bits Du Jour affiliate system.

It's nothing against BDS or any other sites who participate, but it's our policy here that it could be at least an appearance of a conflict of interest if we get money when people buy programs listed on our site.

(It's been suggested that we could take the affiliate payments and do something special with the money, but i don't think that really solves the ethical problem -- i just don't think we should be making money based on users buying certain programs instead of others..)

[Renegade]

Mouser, I don't necessarily mean just the affiliate aspect, but there is more to it than that. One of the things I was thinking of was for you to have some kind of syndicateable (is that a word?) thing for DC. DC is more than just a few programs. It's a real community and that's something that you can work with.

i just don't think we should be making money based on users buying certain programs instead of others.

Just don't start getting all pinko marxist commie red army socialist wacko on us! 

I've known Nico casually for a few years. He's a good guy. I know he's got good intentions behind this all. (Yes, it's a business, but you can still do good and make money at the same time. I help people learn music and play music better, and I get paid for it. Nothing wrong with that. We all have to eat and put rooves over our heads.)

[mouser]

I tried to make clear but in case i left the wrong impression -- I had nothing but good feelings about Nico, and he was very nice and understanding about the issues i raised.  BDS gets mentioned quite a bit on DC and i have no problem at all with it, or with the affiliate system in general.  I think people here on DC appreciate the ability to buy software at discounted prices and i say more power to BDS 

The only issue i was commenting on was the fact that affiliate sales is something DC has always declined to participate in, for the reasons i cited above and for reasons we've discussed before -- we will still keep looking for ways in which we can pass along savings to members instead of taking affiliate fees.  I'm not sure how much of an ethical difference there is, but it feels like a reasonable line to draw in the sand.

I don't really understand this part:

One of the things I was thinking of was for you to have some kind of syndicateable (is that a word?) thing for DC.

[Darwin]

It's been suggested that we could take the affiliate payments and do something special with the money, but i don't think that really solves the ethical problem -- i just don't think we should be making money based on users buying certain programs instead of others..

Intruding where I should perhaps keep my head down and my mouth shut (or at least my fingers bunched tightly into fists, held away from my keyboard), I recall similar issues being raised a number of times in the "early days" of DC. The ethical objections revolved, in part, around the need for DC (the site, not the community) to maintain its impartiality because of the software reviews and mini-reviews. I think that the possibility of BDJ links on the site also raise this issue, even if peripherally.

I don't know if this is part of what mouser was thinking about, but wanted to mention it anyway. Like much of what takes place in my thinking, this is one of those half-formed, vague thoughts. Caffeine is a cruel mistress and I must yield to her demands! Maybe I can make more sense after a couple of more cups of coffee 

[mouser]

The reviews are definitely part of the issue.. If we write a positive review of a program which we also got affiliate payments from, people would start saying that we gave it a positive review in order to increase sales and thus our own profits.  People need to know that our reviews are not biased, and the best way to insure that is to not get into situations where we profit when people buy a program that is recommended on DC.

[Darwin]

Coffee's not helping - my head still feels like it's full of cotton wool this morning  Anyway, mouser's managed to capture and clarify exactly what I was trying to say...

[Renegade]

I don't really understand this part:

One of the things I was thinking of was for you to have some kind of syndicateable (is that a word?) thing for DC.

I mean that in an abstract manner.

In this case above, Nico has taken the affiliate thing to a new level where he's adding value to the system, then looking for more affiliates through some form of syndication.

For DC, you've got reviews and such, but if you were able to package them up into easily consumable tidbits (small that is), you could syndicate them out to download sites to incorporate into their own sites alongside existing products. Have people click to get full reviews, etc. You'd likely want some branding or whatever, but... There are lots of different scenarios there where you could potentially get DC out to a much larger audience. I've left that all very vague, but if anyone "gets" the idea, it's easy to work with. (I'll be doing something abstractly similar in the near future.)

[mouser]

Ah I understand, you are suggesting that DC find some mechanism and incentive for websites to put a little dc box or page on their site somewhere that would send people to us.  interesting idea if could think of something that would work and fit in with our approach.

A natural idea would be for US to give a commission from donations to sites that refer people to us.. But I think again this goes against our basic ethical approach where we don't want people to think they are being recommended to donationcoder based on some kickback a site is getting.  I'd rather have half the donations but people know that when someone recommends us it's an honest recommendation not motivated by some affiliate fee.

[Renegade]

Ah I understand, you are suggesting that DC find some mechanism and incentive for websites to put a little dc box or page on their site somewhere that would send people to us.  interesting idea if could think of something that would work and fit in with our approach.

A natural idea would be for US to give a commission from donations to sites that refer people to us.. But I think again this goes against our basic ethical approach where we don't want people to think they are being recommended to donationcoder based on some kickback a site is getting.  I'd rather have half the donations but people know that when someone recommends us it's an honest recommendation not motivated by some affiliate fee.

Forget about the money. That's not important. Think SEO. If you can syndicate the content out to a select number of approved site owners (you don't want to allow just anyone like all the "me too" MFA [made for adsense] sites), they'll benefit from having quality content on their sites that will raise their rankings and traffic. A savvy site owner would understand this and see the benefit. It would naturally benefit you as well, but they'd still be getting the "first click" for a lot of things.

However, it would require proper formatting for syndication. That's the hard part...

[mouser]

well im very happy to hear ideas on what we could do..
i recently added an rss syndication for the blog, complete with images:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;limit=10;sa=blogs;type=rss2

And i'm very open to the idea of providing something like that in a more appropriate form, etc.