V4.1.x Finished - Allow users to purchase Advertising on your site

I just finished a modification (Not a drop, activate and go mod, I dont do those, modification as in hard coding) that allows you to create categories specifically for allowing advertisers to advertise on your site with text links, banners etc, and have them show up in whatever location you choose by creating a plugin. (Plugins included)

It also keeps the advertisements from showing up anywhere on your site except for the advertising zones you choose.

A users clicks on a link that says advertise here, in a certain zone or portion designated for advertisers on your site, which takes them to the package created for that advertising zone. Once they choose it, submit and pay, it instantly shows up in random rotation in that advertising zone.

Its a neat way to keep everything in house. It also has tracking features, as in seeing the ammount of times it ha been viewed, clicked etc.

its slim and bare bones, right to the point.

Im just checking to see if there is any interest in something like this, I can put together a how to, and it can be implemented in about a half hours worth of time maybe less. Requires developer version.

Let me know if your interested, I will take into account how many people are and go from there. I am willing to take a small fee for the info, or trade or whatever doesnt really matter.

Thanks for the advice. If there is a need for this or the other ones, I may do that. First I need to see if these are things people even want, because if not, Im gonna save myself some time of packaging them up.

If there is a need, Im not 100% sure I will submit them, all depends.

But now that I think about it, I would rather just write about the changes I have made, share files I have created in the process, etc etc so its not so formal.

I just want to make sure before I proceed, Is this the section to write about experiences in modifying 68classifieds? I just want to make sure Im not stepping on anyones toes.

If its not just point me in the right direction, so I can put this junk i got in my head into the Forum.

So if its cool with the mods, Id like to just keep it informal and use the forum to share with other members, Part of the satisfaction is formatting my posts when I do a walkthrough, I dont want to lose that.

Also my mods are hard coded, I only put the best, leanest stuff in. Like I said they are hardcoded, anyone who wishes to do what I do must have the developer version, and if they dont have it, they should get it. jmho

I would like to see such mods here in the forum, so we all can learn something from each other.

If you have plugin/mod that you want to sell, the classifiedmods.com site is a good place for that.

Thanks guys. If I decide to sell anything I will definitely go classifiedmods just to keep in tune with the system.

I have also decided to look into creating actual modules that are drop in. That will be a bit though, as I am extremely short on time.

I have a few that just require editing the templates and adding a database, so I will start with them. They will be hard coded, but simple. i would make them into modules, its just that I dont have the time right now. If someone wants to take what I write or share and make it into a module, Im fine with that as long as what I share isnt sold.

Thanks for the kind advice and kind pm's, it is much appreciated.

I like the spirit, this will a good contribution to these forums and make the forum an even better place.

I have a question about this mod. I don't remember the link to the demo but I think this mod will be able to accomplish what I was looking for. If the ad zone chosen is a certain category, would it be possible for people to choose their link for the ad zone of that category? (on top of of the ads table in the category)

Let's say the customer has a car garage and he wants to post his garage link in the vehicles section only that will randomly show on top of that category only. Just so there isn't any relevant links in that category. So can this be done for every category? I know I am going a little further then its first purpose, but Kijiji.ca has this and it seems to work good for them. Sorry if it is not clear.

Here is an example if what I said isn't very clear.

Petites Annonces Voitures - Montréal Automobiles, Autos à vendre - Kijiji Montréal (The sponsored links section)

As of now, it doesn't have that type of functionality, I suppose it could with a little modification as it uses plugins, but I really dont have any plans of doing that.

In fact after reviewing certain information, this may never see the light of day, as it requires a little bit of hard coding since I dont have any time whatsoever to learn how or to actually make it into a module.

I have realized since I originally posted this that any hard coding would prohibit some files from being updated in the future, hence it probably wouldnt be wise to implement this.

Here is a bit of information for those that wish to pursue something similar to this. There are a few different ways to do this, the easiest way is to duplicate the checkout process, and create a plugin for every "ad zone" ( I have 3 ad zones on my site) The key being to have it look for cats that are hidden, those would be your ad cats.

You could go a bit further and add an extra field to the database under the categories table, add the field to admin templates and be able to select whether a cat is for advertising.

I realize this is general information, but thats the basic principle of it. This could be made into a module also fairly easily. It all depends on your level of understanding of 68. When I get some time to work on it, I may revisit it for the future.

Okay no problem, this was just an idea that I thought was somewhat related to this mod, that is why I posted it in the same thread. My time is quite restrained as well, but I might give it a try this summer.

I am interested in this. Did you do it? Where can I get it, or learn how to do it myself? I am not afraid of hardcoding or learning.