Product placements
 

Just an idea to generate finds for Menewsha, product placement is used in so many films and used a lot in u.s television, it's finally made its way to the u.k. And I find it very difficult to argue it distracts from the entertainment... So maybe it can be incorporated into this site, I know some avi sites have tried similar things, but surely it is worth a try? Games, items or events based on products or services, and menewsha receives advertising fee?

It's a feasible idea, the only problem is we're way too small for it to be worth any company's time. Our active userbase being not much over 1000 at peak times (during events). We'd need to be a great deal larger to get anywhere with something like this. So no cans of Coke for your avatar to holdd just yet, sorry! [ninja]

I'd support this on one condition and one condition only. The "Item" they are paying for them to make... has to not be a piece of crap nobody would ever want.
Gaia did this and it made them more a nuisance than anything else.

I would totally use a CocaCola item...

I like some of the Secret items. The cute shoes (a massive rarity on Gaia) and the yellow butterflies I liked a lot. [yes]

Not sure what those are. Must have missed them. But there were so many items from so many companies... and they just weren't very useful...

Like for example this:
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9636/a7ql.png

It's simple, it's useful, and people would probably be able to use it for themed outfits.
A giant nutcracker head? Not so much...

There's probably loads of items you could do that either would not distract from the quality of the site, or even be good items, as long as they were chosen carefully. Some tie ins would be popular, and would depend on zeitgeist/popular trends at the time.

Think, film wise, new pirates of the Caribbean is coming out...or robocop. Or popular clothing brands such as super dry.
And then a multitude of new or established companies that create anything else or provide services. Probably be surprising who may be compatible, and t shirts with logos on are easy enough and I wouldn't see that as selling out?

These are just ideas, open for debate, may not be doable at this point or ever practical, but if it helps people brainstorm, or think of other ideas, that's got to help surely?

@jelly you say menewsha may not be worth a companies time, has anybody been scouting out possibilities? And how large would menewsha aim to be... If menewsha wanted to get much bigger that is (people would be afraid of losing the quality that makes this place so great, and going down the lines of others sites)

But at the same time, we may be afraid of copying things, just because we don't want to copy, or fall into the same traps as others. But many companies will copy a good idea, and make it their own... As Sun Tzu said in the art of war I believe in my old job I had the task of doing a lot of advertising, and coming up with new ideas, and sometimes the simplest way was rather than spending lots of time and money trying to compete with the big boys out there. We could just copy someone that has already spent thousands or millions doing research and development? But put our own spin, ideas changes and therefore identity on it and sometimes improving.