A few members  asked what sort of advertising plan we have  for Open Salon. Social content sites are relatively new; there's no obvious path toward making money on them. (And to state the obvious: In these times as much as any, we need to make money.)

We're going to continue to run sponsorship programs on Open, as we did earlier this year when the education non-profit Strong American Schools sponsored weekly Calls and spotlighted related features on the Open cover, and popped up around the site in the different listings, always identified as a Proud Open Sponsor. This sponsorship program continues later this week when Shell comes on board, and we'll continue with more sponsors into  the new year. We're excited about the sponsor program because we think it's integrated into what the site already does -- creating discussion around issues that are important. We're proud they want to sponsor Open members' great work, and we're really grateful for their support. That's not to says we won't consider other ways to advertise on Open Salon in the future, but the sponsorship approach is the one we're offering, and most excited about.

Also, we are actively planning ways for members to host advertising programs on their Open blogs in the new year, if they want to, as well. That way you would be able to make money based directly on the amount of traffic that comes to your blog page. It requires some buildout, and there's much more on that to come, but wanted to make sure members know that's high on our priority list, too.

Advertising Open: Some of you might also have noticed spots promoting Open Salon on IFC (they're also running, occasionally, on Salon.com). It's through a partnership we have with IFC, and they run throughout IFC's programming and highlight our featured weekly Open Call. They're cool little spots -- if you catch one, let me know what you think. I'll also try and find a link to one, so you can check it out.