I think kb is on the right track as far as collecting all the metrics on the site. But to spin it a different way, what if there was an actual real world cost given to the uses of the site. Say you take the cost of bandwidth and then you divide that by how much each individual user is drawing from the site. Then you take the cost of storage and you divide that by how much each individual adds to that storage by adding content, comments, etc. It would be interesting to see a little ticker on my feed somewhere that tells me, as close and specific as possible, how much I as one user costs the owner to keep the doors open. This info would only be visible to each person. No one could see other users usage and dollar draw. As a user that has been here for a while, I would love to know how much I am costing Hubski, and would definitely be more likely to give money - and likely even more than I cost. You could take this as far as you wanted. Say you took all the time that was spent to code the back end, upgrade hardware and what not, well that could be a line item too. The more users on the site, the more these costs are divided. The more active someone is, the more they cost. Payment would not have to be required, it would just be a "hey, fyi, your 50 posts today cost us $.00065 in storage.

Another idea is to have an actual page that you could go to with advertising on it. It wouldn't be on any other screen but one. It could look like "feed - chatter - global - tags - community - badges - accounting" or something. I click on accounting and it's just a stream of video ads or something. Also on that screen, there is another ticker that tells me how much the site is earning by me watching these ads. Say I wanted to earn Hubski 50 cents one day because I saw that that was how much my draw was that day for using the site, I could watch ten ads, or refresh my screen and get more ads or whatever. Mind you, I have no idea how ads work or give money.

Edit: My first point reminds me of the new Aphex Twin album cover, where he breaks down where all the costs of his album went to. I know for example that .00041 quid went to tracking and monitoring illegal download links and that .00113 quid went to advertising in Spain:

When I was three years old I slipped on the steps of my front porch made of concrete. I managed to land on the toe of a step with my mouth wide open - as if to take a bite. The force of my mouth hitting the concrete pushed all of my upper teeth back into the gum until they were completely out of sight. The doctor said that all I could do was wait till each tooth slowly fell back down, which they ultimately did. Apparently, I looked like a chipmunk for the next several months. Cheeks and lips swollen. I had some fairly misaligned teeth after that which went on to inform how my adult teeth grew-in. This only got corrected once I had braces in my teens. Fortunately for me, I was so young that the memory of it all - including the pain - is not something I can recall. The only thing I have as a reminder is how dad describes my blood curdling screams as he picked me up with a mouth full of shredded gums and concrete dust.

Yeah man. I've called us Hubbies before. But I also remember calling us all 'Skiers' - because we don't surf the web, we ski it. That makes zero sense. Or complete sense. You choose.

I always liked Hubbies for its implications to marriage. But I saw someone use skiers recently and I think that's better. Instead of surfing the web, we ski the web. Slalom style.

Let's see. Well I lost my virginity when I was 20 so there's that one. After that, when I discovered that girls liked me, I was sleeping with as many of them as I could. Just steam rolling that shit. I hurt a lot of people that way. It ended up being not fun at all. When I was 20, I didn't quite realize how much my own wants and desires could affect the people around me. When I learned to start caring more, I became a heck of a lot happier. I've come to realize that the sex thing was just a small part of the binge-era 20's. There were a few solid years there where the most important question of the day was 'what are you drinking tonight?'. I think it's something I HAD to go through in order to realize this and would never suggest that people live differently - for sure this type of lifestyle defines many a 20-year-old.

My only advice to glean from all of that for anyone listening is to try really really hard to nurture your internal self. Build your OWN character. As you get older and the friends disappear, and the scenery changes, the ONE thing that you will have to rely on is the person you've made yourself into. What kind of person do you want that to be?