hi, just wondering if anyone has any experience with selling banner space on their forum. Let's say you have a large board with ten thousand users, very active members, and then a large company asks to place a banner up. How much would you charge them? let's say the banner is for every forum and the duration will be 1 month.....

From my experience and seeing advertising on large forums like that (meaning over 10k users and a few hundred people online at any given time) I have seen a bit of a range in prices.

But here are some I've seen:

480x60 Banner, top of page: $25 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) or $500-1200/month (unlimited impressions)

480x60 Banner, bottom of page: $15 CPM or $250-700/month

120x60 Buttons, anywhere: $25-100/month

Again, these are just some prices I've seen at some large forums. If this will be the only ad on your site, they would be exclusive so you may be able to get a bit more, or less, just depends on the company asking.

thanks jeremy, just off my original topic a little, is it actually illegal in the US or Canada to have mp3 available for download on your server? Of course you're not asking for people's money.... but just distributing for free....

If the song is not your own and protected by copyrights or you do not have permission to distribute it in that method, then yes it would be illegal to even have it available for download.

yeah thought so... cheers

My site is mostly an MP3 site and I have to keep a close eye on things because people sometimes upload copyrighted songs and they are immediately removed. I have strict rules about that sticky'd in the MP3 forums, don't want the RIAA sending me to jail

Yeah, here in the states the RIAA is pressing charges against 13 year old girls and sixty something year old grandmas for downloading copyrighted songs. I think their standard lawsuit is $150,000 per downloaded song, although they often seem to settle for a few thousand dollars a song.