Content dilemma - it's good stuff, but at a price

Does altruism pay off?

[roldar]

My site, widgets.com, is primarily a content site. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert on widgets. I've written some content myself, but I know it's not top notch. I also offer a service for free - a program I wrote that helps people use their widgets better.

I put an ad up, almost without thinking about it, asking for widget experts who would be willing to write content for my site in exchange for a page linking from each article they write, on which they sell widgets. No outbound links - for all my visitors would know, these people are part of widgets.com.

My question is, is this a mistake? I could really use some content, and judging by the response to my ad I could get a significant amount of quality work in a short period of time. I don't have any interest in selling widgets myself. There aren't many types of widgets - these people would pretty much cover the bases. The conflict arises because I picture myself making most of my money through adsense ads to sites selling widgets, and selling Amazon books about widgetry.

I have plans to expand the site considerably in the future - not only offering information about widgets, but information about wudgets as well. Unfortunately, wudgets aren't a monetizable item like widgets.. but they do compliment each other, and I would definitely get more people coming to the site if I offered wudget info as well.

I'm thinking I should suck it up and save money for some real content, but I'm also tempted to take the "free" content route because I think it might help foster a sense of community on the site. I think I could set up a message board and these widget sellers may be willing to dispense tech support on widgets for free - well, they'd be getting more attention which would = more widget sales.

There is a whole other product, which I'll call wodgets, that I'd love to get into. Unfortunately it's a product which has qualities that limit it to being sold by very popular outlets. There is big money in being a purveyor of wodgets, but, again, it's something that only maybe a dozen websites have enough traffic to sell.

Widgets, wudgets, wodgets... I wonder if anybody knows what I'm talking about.. because I think I've forgotten and could use help remembering.

I'm in need of money, I don't have money to spare, and I'm afraid of turning my site into a cash cow for the content providers and a bandwidth liability for myself. So should I take the community building route, which may not have as much money in it - or could possibly have big money in the distant future - or should I write some more amateurish articles and hope my service on how to use wadgets better will interest enough people in coming to the site and finding my content so crappy that the adsense ads look tempting?