Kottke does a survey of ad-blocking in RSS feeds, and the comments are as interesting as his post. With Boing Boing and Searchblog and a business I hope to start if I ever, ever, finish this book, I got a dog or three in this fight. And honestly, I come down here, at least given the information I have at my disposal now: I think unobtrusive, relevant ads in full text RSS feeds are just fine. If more than half my readership reads my stuff in a newsreader, why should Bloglines or MyYahooRSS be the only folks making money off my work? And don’t talk to me about client side readers – the vast majority will be reading from server side solutions like the abovementioned, and those solutions plan to make hay on my content. If we don’t support authors, we all lose. My two cents.
I Got A Dog or Two In This Fight…
Kottke does a survey of ad-blocking in RSS feeds, and the comments are as interesting as his post. With Boing Boing and Searchblog and a business I hope to start if I ever, ever, finish this book, I got a dog or three in this fight. And honestly, I come…
That is not the only solution. I am willing to pay a nominal fee to a central source that acts as a unification point for distributing media from partners, and then splits the income between them. For example, if slashdot, metafilter, your blog, and the other 30 RSS feeds I surf were to join such an alliance, I would be more than happy to pony up.
The part that really pisses me off, though, is television. People are already paying for this content, yet they are still subjected to 3+ minute long stints of advertising.
Anyway, if I were you I would jump off the advertising bandwagon. Advertising == brainwashing == bad mojo. Nothing piqued my anger more than seeing that amazon banner at the bottom of your feeds. I’LL PAY, DUDE! (seriously!)
(I meant cable television)
And in case anyone needs a real world example, consider that Howard Stern just made the jump, albeit under pressure, to proprietary satellite XM radio. They serve no advertisements and rely on the fact that users subscribe to their service because the content they are delivering is worth it.
So that’s the question. Is the content you are delivering worth it? If not, maybe advertising is for you.
I really, really, really, really hate advertising. I am willing to pay for the things I enjoy in my life, and my mind is not yours for the pillaging.
Personally I think that blogs could offer an ad-free paid version kind of like slashdot does. But definitely, ads are going to be part of the mix.
Ultimately, someone has to pay the bill.
Unfortunately, the vast majority have proven that they’re unwilling to pay for content. Partly due to the fragmented nature of the net. If i were to split half of my hosting bill with my audience, I’d have to somehow convince them to pay me $1 a year. I’m pretty sure i could do that, but the overhead for collecting that one dollar far exceed the revenue I’d make.
For me, ads would simplify things since I don’t have to do billing for my audience, effect payment and refunds, worry about fraud or any of the other pain that goes with it.
I don’t feature ads now, and probably won’t for quite some time (That’s the fun of not being popular), but I can easily see just how compelling ads are.