I need some Monetization Ideas

It changes every hour! My site is a social bookmarking / article writing site, so there really isn't much of a niche that I can create. I just get lucky sometimes and get Ads that are worth a lot of money, depending on the bookmarks that are on the front page at the time.

Very interesting so far.

I'm not quite sure how I will sell affiliate products on my site, aside from writing articles about the products with the affiliate link in them, and then trying to get that article ranked and get traffic. I guess I just answered my own question...

Any other ideas? I would be really curious to know how digg or similar sites got started, and how long it took them to get to the point where they are now- up to $25,000 an ad on their site. Without investors, or a lot of money to drop on some serious marketing, I have no idea how I could ever grow a site that large and that engaging, where people are knocking down the door to advertise.

They had to have the money coming in one way or another at first. Right? Right now, I'd just like to be able to make around $400 a month to cover student loan payments, so if I'm ever at the point where I can sell serious advertising, I'll have met my goal many times over.

Sparhawke! I knew I recognized that name!

I have no idea how you are not seeing AdSense ads. They are all over the site - there is a big image ad (large square) in the top right corner, a large banner toward the bottom of the sidebar, a 460x80 ad under the first post on the home page, and on story pages there is a small link unit added on the right side and an image ad at the bottom of posts. I certainly hope this isn't a recurring theme for many people, since it is a revenue sharing site... that would be a disappointment.

As far as a referral program, that is something I have wanted to implement since day one, but I just can't figure out the coding for it. I was offered by a programmer to have a script built for referral programs, but that would cost $500 that I don't have. Since the site is based on Pligg, existing scripts will not work - I would need something VERY similar to HubPages' referral script. It WOULD be the best thing for viral type growth, though.

I am going to continue writing articles, and start posting reviews, etc., to try and gain some traffic from the search engines.

I have been sending out weekly emails to all users, but it seems that only 10% of people actually read the emails. I have offered a $20 contest to write an article about my site (it's cheap, but I thought it would be effective - I would have written an article to compete for $20), and no one is participating. I have offered to give users 100% revenue sharing if they write one unique article on my site; no takers.

Last night, someone DID finally write an article on my site (and it was the first thing they did after they joined! they didn't even bookmark anything). I guess I'll just have to keep trying until more people join. I would REALLY like to make my site a simple, clean, all in one site - like digg meets Xomba meets infobarrel, but easier to navigate. I just need members to actually use all the features, and not only use the site for bookmarks!

If anyone has any more advice, I'd love to hear it!