Avatar ads for cash - start up idea?

Would any forum allow that, you think? I agree that the user more often pay services by ads, and might become a billboard for other users. But avatars? I am not sure.

Howeverr, Star Fleet should pay you. They abandoned the concept of money, but I believe they at least owe you a hug. :p

Interesting idea, but where do you draw the line between exposure and good publicity?

Let’s assume you can get this concept to work in a way that users and sites/fora have no problem with it (unlikely, but let’s assume). How will you get companies to pay you for that without limiting the free speech of the end user?

Do you think McDonald’s or Burger King (spending millions on advertising and creating a brand) will let you use their hard work (brand and logo) just so a random user (who might be a vegetarian, disgruntled employee, anti-capitalist or just some troll) can nullify their entire marketing campaign and image?

Wait, is this strictly related to Fluther avatars? My guess is no. In that case, and if I understand correctly, you mean sponsorship. Sponsorship is already in place.

Is the ‘readership’ based on a given avatar’s number of hits?

Do you mean to say that if I sport an Apple Condoms T-shirt in my avatar, and I spend lots of time on here answering questions, that I could potentially receive cash money incentives?

By the way, just because I doubt it certainly doesn’t mean someone is not willing to put money behind it (I get reminded of that every time I watch Dragon’s Den). Also this is done on Facebook all the time (I believe people can add brands to their accounts).

Mine is a (subtle) ad for anything Star Trek, obviously, but this q was inspired by a couple of avatars which were simply an Orange (Partner) logo and a diet Coke logo.

How to actually go about it? I dunno.

@Zen The idea isn’t that farfetched and reminds me of this guy. He sold a million pixels of advertising space for a penny per pixel ($10k) this concept spread to other sites. And even though I can’t think of any examples right now I have seen plenty of sites that offer a limited space of pixels for sale. An avatar basically is just a small space of pixels, so why not?

@markyy Cool.

Ok, I get it. So it is like sponsorship. Maybe your idea is to set up a 3rd party firm that connects companies with those who will avatarilly advertise?

On that note, I’m sporting a Barnum and Bailey T-shirt in my avatar. Maybe I can get the circus to pay me some dividends. I do ask a lot of silly questions.

I think the founders would quickly squelch commercial messages on avatars.

@Marina Every other avatar is a commercial for something.

@Zen It’s a matter of intent. People using the commercial avatars you mentioned do not really have the rights to use them.

Also, whether they have received payment for the placement or someone is profiting from the placement.

@Marina First, stranger things have happened. Coming from the failed wis.dm, I know that all kinds of places wished they’d have advertising in creative ways – or face going under, as it did.

Look at secondlife and it’s advertising.

Now, I didn’t mean to suggest that Bendrew do it here, and I am not business inclined so I wouldn’t know where to begin myself. It was just a thought that popped into my little head when I saw these avatars sporting just ads. Not a guy with a tiny t-shirt with an ad, an actual coke ad and partner ad.

It got me thinking about cars that are one giant ad. The owner gets paid a monthly fee, or something like that.

Maybe in the future, those who are interested in making some cash would sport an avatar ad. Or maybe not, but I wanted to discuss it.

Lurve for the 20k.

:-)

Spam avatars would cause problems for many people here.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Agreed. I don’t think it’s really possible here.

Jeez, would you folks please talk a bit more quietly, my Town dog just said she wants to be paid royalties because I am using her photo for an avatar!

This question reminded me of this.

@augustlan – and she did it for only 10 grand, I can’t believe it’s permanent. What was she thinking?????

I see some serious bangs in her future.

@augustlan hehehehe, great answer!

The average cost of a laser removal is only 500 bucks so that’s still 9500 bucks of pure profit ;) I wonder if the contract will still be valid if the casino went bankrupt, it might not be that permanent (Unfortunately I don’t think many casino’s go bankrupt).

how would it make money?

impressions based is not likely

and since you cannot change the avatar link destination there goes click through

oh well

I mean yay, less advertising!