An indie hacker advertising network? You share my project I share yours.
I really hate looking at shitty corporate ads made by their million-dollar ML system to recommend me the most likely to be bought product based on the data they've collected about me.
What I like to see are indie hacker projects and what I want to do is support others working on these types of projects. It occurred to me that a symmetric advertising platform is possible in our community here.
The idea is: Indie hackers, in this network, display a clean advertisement (a simple text and link) of another indie hacker's project in exchange for their project being advertised on another project.
"You scratch my back I scratch your back"
I imagine these ads would work well at the bottom of a newsletter or in the footer/sidebar of a website. Of course, there are some issues off the bat - I'd love to have a discussion around these:
What happens when it's more valuable to display a project on one project than another?
What I currently think: This asymmetry is unavoidable but it can be balanced in a number of ways. Let's say I'm made a project that currently has little to no users/traffic. The first solution would be to have a threshold of traffic required to join the network. However, we've all been there and I want to support these new projects. So, new projects could receive a grant of views to help get them off the ground - this would incentivize users to submit their projects to this network only when the sites ready so the grant is well spent. Of course, this grant would have to be provided by someone so it could be an opt-out program when joining the network.
Would the ads even be relevant to the audience they're displayed to?
I don't think you're ever going to get the level of targeting that something like google ads provides, but I'm sure a simple keyword target feature is reasonable. I'm sure this will require some experimentation. At the end of the day, if you want to join the network you believe in helping other indie hackers.
Would you join this network? What problems do you imagine arising?
I think a network like this would be really cool! It would take quite a bit of participation to get it running. It would at least need a few sites/apps that are making waves for their to be much of a benefit for others to get out of it (aside from the benefit of sharing links and creating backlinks for others)
Maybe for the view "grants" their is a minimum bar for page views to join the network, unless they are invited by a current member of the network. Like a personal voucher. "I like bob. He makes cool sites. I vouch for him, and give him a grant of views"
Some basic targeting and raging of other projects in the network should work to get it off the ground. Also allowing each site owner to say they if they do not want to be displayed on any other particular site. "I don't think Jim's website works for my audience, they are knitters while I am making code tutorials. Prevent my ad from showing on his site"
Maybe also having different options for the method of advertising. Sort of a "choose which is right for you". You have a podcast, talk about another project and share a link. You make videos? Show a page of the site. Got a twitter audience? Post some tweets.
Do people get paid for sharing the ads in the network or is it all out of the goodness for the community? Is it a pay what you can sort of system?
I can see the slogan now "the patreon of advertising"!! Hahaha 😅