Freesound Forums

This is an essential site for me, and I'd gladly make an annual donation. In fact I'm going to make one right now, and will sign up to the annual thing when it comes along.

Maybe an option to hide the regular donation messages for people logged in who have made the annual donation? Not sure how easy/hard that is to set up. I don't mind seeing the messages, and am not opposed to ads as long as they're not popups or the ones that cover the page making you hunt for the close button. I use adblock for the intrusive ads but whitelist certain sites so they get their hits and clicks, so I'd whitelist this one too.

Thank you so much for contributing this wonderful resource to the audio community. I think following the Wiki contribution model is completely appropriate for Freesound, I will be donating.

Thank you again,
Philip

In regards to advertising, I'm ambivalent: I wouldn't be put off by basic banner ads as long as they're not too distracting. The only thing I put my foot down against is any kind of pop-up or redirect.

On the flip side of advertising - I'd like to see more efforts to promote the site and attract a larger base of users. That means possibly an exchange of advertising, which might be an ideal way to accomplish both birds with one stone. Other's thoughts?

-- Phill

For the record, I didn't take the time to read the thread, so I apologize in advance if this has already been suggested:

I always mean to donate to Wikipedia, but I've never actually done it... until recently. I was purchasing a game on the Humble Bundle website, and it has "charities" listed there. One of them was actually the Wikimedia foundation. So because I was spending money anyway, I felt completely enthused to put some of it towards Wikipedia.

Now I don't know what kind of baggage/requirements/percentages come with that, but I think it would be entirely fitting to have your company as part of that. It could even draw more attention to the site in general.

Beyond that, I'm good with a banner asking for donations. However I do appreciate if it's not an "all the time" thing, but rather only until a yearly goal is met. Again, I don't know how successful it is for Wikipedia, but I do find that approach more inviting to donate. It makes it more like a campaign rather than a neverending request. And having a ticker to watch fill is satisfying as well.

Having a banner all the time would probably just lead folks to "blocking it out", as we have unfortunately been trained by the internet to do with most ads.

I think that Freesound offers a tremendous service.

I would be happy to pay a small annual fee to subscribe.

- Rupert

Although I'm almost always low on money, freesound.org has helped me a lot, finding audio samples to fill in blank spaces on an instrumental, add background noise for atmosphere or repitching samples to create instruments. Freesound is probably my favourite website for all of the above, I was reading your update (for the first time) as I rarely visit any forums on the web actually and, before even reading to the end, I thought it would be a good idea to donate something. I really like the website how it currently is and don't think anything needs changing, but if you're going to put in work to improve it then you definitely deserve more donations. I'll happily put in 5 or 10 euros a year into this project and wish the developers good luck for the future of this website

Freesound has been incredibly useful to me over the years, and I will absolutely donate if that is the route you choose.

I just wanted to say how respected I feel when I use your site... I'm not sure if I can say that about any other place in the digital world. I use the sounds in storytelling / video editing workshops that I facilitate - pointing workshop participants to your site to help them create videos for the first time. I would absolutely help support your efforts to upgrade the site. And I trust you to use sound judgment in deciding how much to "bug" folks to donate.

Andrea

I don't like the banner idea. I think accepting donation is the way to go. Maybe try setting up some kind of event where people can learn about using freesound tools and charge for tickets. This will help promote freesound and can allow for companies to donate as well.

I ordered Freesound T-shirt, when I read this forum thread. Hope it helps a little. I don't see advertising as bad thing. Maybe you could put Thomann Cyberstore banneria to the site and tell people to buy their gear there by clicking the banner you have in this site. It's kind of Tradedoubler, but without anything between site and seller.

I'm completely on your boat regarding funding and would be willing to fund yearly (as I do with other projects like wikipedia and libreoffice). I wasn't aware of the donation page and will see, how I can add it to my profile and/or to my sounds. The code for a button would be very helpful.
Banner and pop ups aren't my thing at all. On the other hand I think it would be awesome to provide a pop up when someone downloads file/s.
I oppose advertising. Freesound is one of the few websites without advertising, and I think this is really good on the eyes.
Besides money, I am always sending you love for your awesome work!

I just tried to donate and couldn't, because there was no Germany, Deutschland or Bundesrepublik Deutschland to be found on the Paypal list...
Perhaps you could add it? Thanks for the incredibly useful downloads and all the organisation in the background. Don't know where I would be without it!!!

Thank you for your transparency and honesty. I'm a music teacher for special needs students and frequently use freesound to help teach concepts and get my students' attention. I'm here looking for a conch shell sound for a summer theme. Contributing a fair share would be something I would do to continue having access to quality sounds that are within the law to use. I yearly reminder to contribute is more than reasonable.

That's a great idea! I had no idea you could donate on this site until this thread! Promote it! I like that you can donate whatever you want per month. Hope this site stays up, it's amazing!

Hello Freesound Admins.

I didn't have time to read all the comments, so it already might have been suggested by someone else.....
Find yourself a sponsors. such as music maker magazine.

And perhaps an point system for uploading and answering forum request, connected to ratio downloads.
If no uploads donation required.

kind regards,
Ellen

TWO SCENERIOS...# ONE, If Freesound does not have 'advertisers' on the website, then a yearly membership fee offered for 'heavy users' that want unlimited downloads is perfect. A smaller membership fee for 'casual users'. For a 'heavy' uploader, membership is free / by donation and allowance of downloading for free. Amounts of data downloaded / uploaded is monitored by Freesound and users accounts can by notified of any potential additional fees or discounts coming their way. I don't know of any other website like Freesound. If it disappeared I would be disappointed and would not know where to go for sounds.
The problem with getting users to donate for sounds is whether or not that user is profiting (money or necessity) from using the sounds. If yes, then the user 'might' donate a bit depending on the value that Freesound is bringing to the users bank account. If no, then the user will most likely continue to use sounds without donating because that's just what people do and how they are. I personally have made literally about $5 Canadian in the past year after using over a hundred sounds for video creation. So a lot of sounds for very little profit.
BUT, that being said, the value of Freesound website to me goes beyond how much money I'm making. The value lies in Freesounds ability to offer sounds under a huge library that allows me to find and use sounds that help me create videos. That's exactly why I use Freesound. If users need Freesound to help them be creative, those users will pay something to access the data. Simple and easy. Like I said, I don't know of any other website that's better so I rely completely on Freesound.
What does that mean to Freesound? It means that if you made it mandatory to pay a user fee, I would not be upset by that. I would gladly pay a fee based on my usage needs and / or activity. This application is good for users that understand the website and appreciate the value. New users should not pay anything at first so they get a feel for the value of the website to them personally but they will be limited to the amount of data downloaded. Then, based on that new users download / upload activity after 3 months, an appropriate membership can then be offered to them. It's important to allow a user the ability to 'adjust' their membership fee at least once in case usage needs change.
# TWO...If Freesound allows plenty of advertisers, which is the best scenario, that's a great way to at least start generating money for the website. I don't care about popups and ads in my face, I can deal with that for the time I need to use the website. I'm a heavy user of the site and seeing advertisements make me feel good knowing that Freesound is generating income to pay people to improve and maintain the site! What's fair is fair and what's right is right! Ok? Advertising first, then if still needed, an appropriate yearly membership fee based on user needs. Let's do it!

Yep, I too love this site and would gladly make a yearly donation. Keep up the good work!

Hi,

Thanks for continuing posting ideas and comments here
For those of you who have been writing at the end of the thread and might not have read the whole thing, a couple of weeks ago I posted a response to some of the comments we had received at that time: https://www.freesound.org/forum/freesound-project/40188/?page=3#post89094 I think it also addresses some of the new comments so it might be of your interest.

We'll let you know once we advance more on these topics.

Cheers,

Another possibility would perhaps be Patreon. ccMixter has started using it: https://www.patreon.com/ccMixter

How about a trying a monetized YouTube-channel as a source of income ?
Consisting of the most popular, non-commercial, Freesound samples,
( maybe add an animated visualization of the audio on each YouTube video ).

You would then be competing with those currently repackaging Freesounds on YouTube,
who make thousands per year in advertising revenue, e.g ...
https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/soundeffectsfactory [minimum $2K per year]
see ... https://www.youtube.com/user/SoundEffectsFactory/search?query="freesound.org"