Announcing new "More on this topic" section via Wikinvest « naked capitalism

Friday, October 31, 2008

Announcing new "More on this topic" section via Wikinvest

Notice to Readers– As always we are continuing our attempt to find the right combination of advertising and referral mix that will allow us to continue to provide the content and quality you’ve come to expect from Naked Capitalism.

Since advertising provides 95% of our income anything that generates increased viewer traffic and is consistent with our brand we are interested in trying out. We are still about 40% percent below our monthly target revenue.

Wikinvest is attempting to be a centralized quality reference for anyone interested in finance and investment issues. Only top tier bloggers in the field are invited to contribute. The new service provides a “More on this topic” section below each post with 2-3 links to posts by other Wikinvest contributors. And conversely our articles will be linked to from below appropriate posts on other members blogs.

We will be running a simple poll for the next week. If you take a second to vote we’d appreciated it. You can change your vote as often as your opinion changes until the end of the survey period.

Your feedback or comments are also appreciated. –Webmaster

20 Comments:

alan von altendorf says:

October 31, 2008 at 7:24 am

Ed, I like the feature and love Yves. Anything that makes sense financially is a good idea.

Independent Accountant says:

October 31, 2008 at 7:54 am

YS:
As long as Wikiinvest does not attempt to control your content, go ahead.

Anonymous says:

October 31, 2008 at 8:14 am

I am all for you, and therefore anything you do is fine with me. I go to Wikipedia all the time to try and figure out the acronyms. And you know, if you made it possible to contribute, I would (ask calculated Risk)

Edward Harrison says:

October 31, 2008 at 8:15 am

Ed,

I think you should do it. IUt definitely is a good resource for readers because the posts are relevant to your posts and it certainly increases traffic too.

Edward

fresno dan says:

October 31, 2008 at 8:15 am

O, thats my comment above at 9:14 am – hit the publish button before I added my moniker

Juan says:

October 31, 2008 at 8:34 am

Is there a way to simply donate some cash directly to you guys? I think a nice tip jar through paypal on a sidebar would be a great way to give back.

I love your blog and have been reading it daily for almost a year (though I rarely comment). I don’t ever click on ads though; it’s just not something I ever do on the internet. I would be willing to donate cash from time to time to make sure you don’t stop writing some of the most incisive articles I read all day.

eh says:

October 31, 2008 at 8:35 am

So far from what I’ve seen it’s useful.

Richmond Rambler says:

October 31, 2008 at 8:41 am

Yes, Yves. Why not a tip jar? Many use Firefox (as I do) and don’t even receive ads.

Anonymous says:

October 31, 2008 at 9:13 am

I appreciate your efforts. This blog is my first blog read each morning because of its timeliness and value added. Keep it up!

Still, I worry a little about some of your advertisers, specifically the Google ads thin banner at the top of your site. It has hyperlinks to “Jessica Alba Naked,” “Angelina Jolie Naked,” “Naked News,” and “Naked Images” today, and similar “naked” sites in the past. It’s clear that Google hasn’t figured out that “capitalism” is the focus of your site, not nudity.

You may want to discuss this with Google.

Dan says:

October 31, 2008 at 9:44 am

I would also like to see a tip jar. Two weeks ago I was trying to give some money but was stymied. Have you thought about text ads for RSS feeds?

IF says:

October 31, 2008 at 11:22 am

I was confused as I assumed you did not care for ads and I never saw one. Then I realized I browse with Adblock Pro switched on. I switched it off and I still don’t see much advertisement, even less that seems clickable (Jessica Alba naked? A Ford Crossover SUV?) Barry Ritholz asked his readers for more targeted ad feeds. Maybe he found something. Otherwise I like the tip jar idea, but I know myself and I am a stingy person and would never be able to tip all the blogs I read.

In any case, you are doing a great job!

Anonymous says:

October 31, 2008 at 11:23 am

If it is associated with Wikipe4dia, it’s a bad idea.

Wikipedia is renowned now for its half-baked “facts” and partisan re-writes by fanatics.

Credibility: none.

Tip Jar is a good idea. Or how about a cheap subscription, those who don’t subscribe only get to see headline and first paragraph.

I think quality should cost, by giving it away free you devalue your product. The internet is full of leeches who won’t pay, so why subsidize them?

One of the best Blogs on the internet, it is worthy of a fee. Thanks for all your hard work.

Kevin says:

October 31, 2008 at 11:43 am

Hi Yves — the link to your poll does not work in Safari or Firefox.

Anonymous says:

October 31, 2008 at 11:43 am

It would be useful to indicate which sites to allow scripts as some, many? of us use the NoScript firefox addon.

russell1200 says:

October 31, 2008 at 3:08 pm

I cannot get the link to the pole to work either and I am on internet explorer.

doc holiday says:

October 31, 2008 at 3:15 pm

If this will help us to drill (baby) and deep dive, then I’m against it, because more information means more confusion, unless we have standard information linked to standard accounting. Hence, with all the new crap going on, no one has any clue as to which model is broken or why new improved information is reliable, safe or useful. In many ways, offering false hope to people in the form of better information, just sets up the next round of bubble pumping — because people will tune in to the next best thing and then race like stuffed pigs and lemmings towards whatever cliff is nearest.

Other than that, sounds pretty good.

See: The ITDS area has seen significant progress over the past several months. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) Cargo Control and Release (CCR) Team has been conducting “deep dive” meetings to review and establish
system requirements with 16 Participating Government Agencies (PGAs). These “deep dive” working sessions are
designed to ensure that the CCR development team can accurately build the functionality presented by the PGAs in
their Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) user requirement documents.

http://www.itds.gov/linkhandler/itds/news/e_newsletters/q3_newsletter_2008.ctt/q3_newsletter_2008.pdf

john bougearel says:

October 31, 2008 at 7:41 pm

Yves,

Two points. One, I think some of your ads are the best out there. Second, the other day, I said to myself, this content is worth paying for as a subscription based model, which is unique for financial blogs.

You could combine the blog as an ad-based and sub-based model.

B/c the info value of your blog should reach as wide an audience as possible however, the sub fee should be either be very low or tip-jar based.

jdr says:

November 1, 2008 at 6:12 am

Tip jar tip jar tip jar! I for one would be a happy contributor.

If you want to have a subscription type edition, that would be fine too, but I agree with John above — that the main benefit of this blog is to encourage economic literacy — so these daily blogs should be left free.

nullpointer says:

November 1, 2008 at 7:30 am

i agree with others – a tip jar!!

i think that a large portion of your readers are savy enough to have adblock running, so your impressions are no where near as high as they should be.

i (as well as many others i assume) use naked cap and CR as our primary source for econ news and analysis. i think a fair number of people would be interested and responsible enough to tip.

i also like the idea of micropayments – an idea that never really took off.

another alternative would be some content is subscription only. if the price was right, i would consider subscribing.

i personally have no problem with you trying to monetize the site – you pour a LOT of hard work into it, and you should be compensated.

john bougearel says:

November 1, 2008 at 9:22 am

Yves,

The hard work you do is an understatement. Just as a interactive reader, I am spending a few hours a day trying to keep up with you. And keep up I must just to get up to or stay up to speed. It is fairly incredible.

Tis fair to say that 100% of your readers are here for the inputs from you and your highly valued blogging community (I have never seen or experienced a better bloggin community, which is another fine credit to you, my dear).

If 0.5% of your readers ever click on an ad great. But, I feel confident that if you put out a “quarterly tip jar” for quarterly fund-raising purposes that you run for two weeks each quarter, the click-through ratio would be through the roof initially. It will undoubtedly taper off substantially as the crisis passes, and as many will only want to contribute annually, it will work wonderfully.

You could do it also in a transparent manner like they do on Channel 11 the public tv station, or NPR radio. Set a goal you’d like to reach in that two week window, and post each day how close you are to reaching that goal. We’d all be cheering for great results for the drive, and it would be so much more fun that dropping a twenty on you.

Be modest in the goal you set, and then do not be surprised by how much we exceed your goal. There is a lot of love for you here in this community, love that grows out of deep respect. All you got to do is reach out and touch it.

Oh, and here is where I make one request, please place your latest wks archives up at the top of your sidebar, I hate having to scroll down half a mile to find what I have already missed in the last twelve hours because you post too damn much, girl!

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