I get so much ad ware at places like “The Daily Caller” it almost stops my computer.
I don't know what the daily unique hit count is for Free Republic.
The source I looked at just gives “rank,” but hides the actual numbers behind a pay wall.
We need $1,000 a day in ad revenue to replace Freepathons.
I have to believe that 100,000 unique visitors a day would generate that easily.
But, Free Republic would lose some of its political autonomy.
If we shifted to ad funding, that means our sponsors become vulnerable to boycotts if outsiders get upset about the frank comments and frequent ridicule of the Left that often appear in these pages.
For some advertisers that isn't a bug, it's a feature. My target market is small businesses and the self-employed who work from home, who tend to be conservative or libertarian. My experience has been that leftist customers tend to be disorganized, lacking a viable business plan and slow to pay. It would therefore be to my benefit to advertise on FR in an unobtrusive fashion. It is for those reasons that I spend some time every day liberal-baiting on Twitter, because retweeting hate messages sent my way gains me conservative followers and generates traffic at my website. I've only been actively posting there for a week and the hate mail sent my follower count from 5 to 63.
Can FR even ACCEPT sponsored advertising and still use media content the way it does as a non-commercial entity (user sponsored)?
The Amazon “book” list (which could simply be a link to some moderated list hosted at Amazon of relevant book and video titles) may be the only option that avoids that charge.