[Dr Ron Suarez]

I’m particularly interested in ads that are not coming from another provider who creates ads and supplies the advertisers. The WP125 plugin is a step in the right direction, since it lets you enter your own ads and the URLs where they link.

For example, my client has his own connections for advertising and has these requirements:
1) Display graphics for ads at different custom sizes in both the sidebar and the footer
2) Include a fade transition, so each space has new ads fade in as the old one is replaced
3) Clicking on a given graphic goes to a link associated with that particular graphic
4) OPTIONAL – tracking stats for click behavior

[Steve]

Not everything has to be built in WordPress. Let WP do what it does best, and incorporate other products.

It sounds like you want an ad server. I would recommend OpenX (www.openx.org) or Google’s Doubleclick (www.doubleclick.com)

[Dr Ron Suarez]

Thanks Steve, I have heard of OpenX and my guess is that it would be overkill for this particular use case. There may only be 10 to 15 different advertisers. I might actually take the word “advertising” out of what I am seeking, because it is essentially a rotating image, where each image links you to a different URL. Maybe in 6 to 12 months OpenX might be a consideration. I will try to take a look at OpenX and check to see just how complicated it is. The current issue is something I’d expect to solve with jQuery or something similar.

[Joly MacFie]

Ted Mann of Gannett gave a presentation about the development of the InJersey hyperlocal news site at last year’s WordCampNYC (video|slides) – his preferred solution was Flyerboard.

[Dr Ron Suarez]

Thanks Joly. Flyerboard certainly looks interesting. However, Flyerboard seems to be targeted at business A creating ads to show on sites X, Y, and Z. My customer is site X wanting to display banner ads with links to businesses A, B and C.

[Joly MacFie]

Did you check the Publishers tab? Essentially you just have to contact them – http://www.paperg.com/join.php

[Dr Ron Suarez]

Here is the actual problem. This is a no-brainer common thing to do in plain HTML. However, we’re using the Genesis (parent), Platinum (child) themes from StudioPress and customizing little things requires pouring through massive amounts of code. Next time we’ll likely just write our own child theme. I am also going to post to studiopress forums for help.

[Dr Ron Suarez]

Thanks again Joly, the publishers tab contains more pertinent info!

[Steve]

It sounds like you want a simple gallery where you can add links to each image. You may want to play with some of the gallery plugins.

[Author]

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