I think it was an awesome concept at the start, now more and more people are doing it but to each his own I guess.

I don't really like seeing them on high end blogs,John Chow is just one example. Just seems a bit immature. If someone claims to be making lots of money online, why do they need to hold their hand out? Not really credible. For places who offer useful services for free, things like that, donation requests seem a lot more valid.

Well, not exactly innundated with voters on this but thanks to SB and Barry (no URL Barry?) for stepping up. Feelings seem to reflect those held in the quoted article but I'm sure there are some strong opinions out there.

It's 50/50 so far, so c'mon, what do you think?

I agree with Barry. I guess it depends on the type of blog. If you are trying to cultivate a professional image, maybe avoid them. If your blog is a little more relaxed, go for it.

I'm not sure where I fit into that. I am thinking about adding a donation for the WordPress plugin I just released called DualFeeds http://www.scratch99.com/wo... I'm still not quite convinced. I wouldn't feel comfortable begging for a post, but maybe I will for the plugin.

@Stephen

I'm inclined to agree with your standpoint as well Stephen. I think for plugin authors who are adding something very useful to users are more than justified in asking for donations - if we had to pay for all these excellent add ons, it would get very expensive indeed so I think it's reasonable for the folks that put the work in to seek compensation.

I do wonder how often people really do donate though?

Has anyone any experience to relate I wonder.......?

How often do people donate - all the time please! :)

Seriously from a personal perspective, I have to admit that I never do. At the moment, I make zero from blogging, but I put a lot of time and effort into it, pay for hosting etc. I can't justify any extra expense to my family. But I may decide to ask for donations on the plugin page, which is a bit hypocritical. Not sure yet though.

On the contrary Stephen, I don't think it is hypocritical to ask for some sort of compensation for developing a free plugin. If anything, by supplying a free tool to your visitors, it makes the request for donations more valid as you are providing something of value.

I'm keen to know just how well people respond to donations because I appreciate it is human nature to want something for nothing :-) and I wonder how willing people are to contribute to the upkeep of a site they enjoy reading or from which they get the benefit of free services/products.

I have occasionally made donations at a forum I used to use in the past because it provided something I really could not get elsewhere and the owner went through a period of struggle with escalating costs and a lot of members were willing to rally around to ensure the continued success of the forum and its services. If someone creates such an arena, the value is obvious to the membership and they don't want to lose it.

With a lot of the blogs I see using donation buttons it seems entirely unclear exactly what reasons they expect readers to have for wanting to donate, aside from the fact that,as you say, it costs a lot of time and money to maintain a blog on a regular basis. I don't see that anyone should feel any obligation to add to their own expenses by contributing towards mine. I rely on generating income from other services where I can provide something that they want - i.e. advertising as just one example.

Hi Maurice,

Thanks for your advice. As I mentioned elsewhere, I've gone ahead and adopted the Buy Me A Beer plugin, only on my plugin page.

As you say, a lot of people using Buy Me A Beer, etc seem to have just decided it's a good idea and whacked it on their site, without having any real reason (apart from me thinking their posts are wonderful and I must pay them something).

I certainly won't pay them just for having a wonderful article. - that's what blogging is all about: creating great content and sharing it. If they have a wonderful article, I will link to it, but I won't pay them for it.

I have donated in the past, when the service was threatened because of lack of funds - but apart from that it's been very rare. With a WordPress plugin, it's a different situation because even if my site were threatened, there are a huge number of other people who could just pick it up (it's GPL), or write one with a similar functionality.

At the moment I haven't gotten into advertising, but I am looking at it. I will probably start with Google Adsense, although everyone tells me it's not the way to go.

Anyway, for me, monetization of my blog starts with donations for the plugin. We'll have to wait and see if anyone donates!

Hi Stephen

Glad you've decided to give it a try and wish you well with it, be good to know how people respond for you.

I noticed you got a link back from the author of "Buy Me A Beer" for your DualFeeds plugin, which seemed apt :-)

I don't care if people have them on their blog, but I can tell you now that the chances of me giving money to someone for blogging are virutally nil. The only way I'd consider it is perhaps if I used a template or plugin they'd created.... but not just for blogging.

I mean we're ALL blogging, so why should we be giving money to each other? If your blog is popular and worthy, then sell advertising. If it's not, then who is going to be giving you this money you're asking for?

I've joked about putting a "buy me a pie" plugin on my site, but it's just that.. a joke. I'd never ask for money from my audience just for the privilege of hearing me rant, which I'd be doing anyway.

Hi Jayne

Thanks for your thoughts. I think we are in agreement that asking readers to donate just for the pleasure of reading your blog is a little hopeful (to put it gently), but that developers and designers are entitled to ask for contributions for work that they donate to users.

Buy me a pie huh? Why not go the whole nine yards and have "Buy Me A Cow Pie" with a neat Desperate Dan logo :-) .