Ads support with Open X

[Manolinux aka Mu]

I think that at some time we will need to include ads support, and that for this it could be ideal the open-source advertising server OpenX.

I've written more details in my wiki user page, since I think this will need a lot of literature: http://wiki.mediagoblin.org/User:Manolinux#Openx_support

Tell me your opinion here or by IRC.

[maiki interi]

Architecture

For sure this must be a plugin. Any work done must be very modular and enough flexible to be adapted to the upcoming plugin infraestructure, whichever form it takes. I don't know gmg enough to say, but maybe page areas must be defined. Anyway, page areas will have to exist when a plugin infaestructure arrives.

I've been considering this myself, since getting into the template system. I think we should probably take a hint from other projects, where there are default zones that plugins may safely presume exist. I don't know how that would work with ads, but if we define areas in the template like header, branding, sidebar n, footer, etc., then plugins can create output with that in mind, and then allow for people to create template overrides if they need something more than that.

For what it's worth, I am personally not thrilled about an ad plugin, but this is a common issue that we are going to need for a lot of plugins (analytics codes, arbitrary widgets, etc.).

[Will Kahn-Greene]

The original url for this bug was ​http://bugs.foocorp.net/issues/700 .

[Christopher Allan Webber]

I think Maiki is right, we should leave some space in the templates to easily allow for ads.

I know, some people are not thrilled about ads, but people are going to deploy instances where they want to run ads, and that should be okay. I think the sane way to handle this is to a) just have a nice space in the templates that can be *generally* extended, and b) integrate this with the upcoming plugin system.

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Pulled off the milestone list. We should do this, but as a plugin. Will and I have been discussing and a plugin architecture should kick off soon.