But ads are available in RSS. There are plenty of companies that offer this service. It's only because companies haven't sold the service that there aren't ads. I don't see a moral quandry here. If anything, greater use of RSS will encourage sites to sell RSS ads.
Do you have links to these services? I've not seen any that offer non-basement CPMs or that will accommodate small publishers. I've tried to work out how to do this with feedburner, but it appears all you can do is run adsense, which is less than ideal.
You could even, GASP, roll your own RSS feeds that have ads. That small technical limitation hardly seems to justify a moral opposition to a wonderful technology.
Please explain how someone without a programming background can roll their own RSS feeds. If there are services out there that people don't know about or tutorials they could learn from, that would be a service to everyone.
Maybe you should pay someone with the expertise to build or implement RSS ads for you? Seems funny that there is a moral opposition to having your potential vistors read your content for free (even though it is being shared by choice and is monetizable), but for some reason paying for programming help doesn't seem to be on your mind.
Hi Adam. Welcome. First, I had no idea this would be the topic du jour. I just don't enjoy using feed readers. They make the web generic and I prefer to read stories where the publisher intended them to be read. By the same thinking, I rent widescreen DVDs (so I can watch films the way the director envisioned them) rather than pan and scan versions of films.
And yes, I could always hire someone to build a custom RSS advertising system. When bootstrapping a startup though, you've got to pick your battles.
Okay, so you're only opposed to feed readers to the extent that the opportunity to monetize your content is worse in them than it is on your site on a CPM or CPC basis? A richer value proposition, in other words, would satisfy your moral obligation?
Loss of sense of destination is the other qualm I have. I like that every web site has its own look and structure. Why turn the web into one big list of headlines?
You know, I used to have that feeling--that news is better read at the destination than in an rss reader. I still certainly believe that's true for much of what I want from many sites, like discussion in the comments. But I found over time that, for many news sites, including blogs, the *words* were sufficient. The author's voice comes through. The intelligence, insight, humor, honesty--most of that survives the transition to an rss reader. That's what I've found for myself, at least.
It's also worth pointing out that this very site is building conversation around other people's stories....still, you've got to click on the link to head over there...
That's right. Different contexts serve different purposes. Ideally, I'd love the discussion about my post "Why I dislike micropayments, don’t mind charity, but have a better idea" to happen at my blog, but I don't really mind at all when people want to have that discussion in a more suitable forum. Still, if I had ads on my site--which I don't because I plan to benefit *because* of blogging, not *from* it--I'd be losing precious pageviews.
But ads are available in RSS. There are plenty of companies that offer this service. It's only because companies haven't sold the service that there aren't ads. I don't see a moral quandry here. If anything, greater use of RSS will encourage sites to sell RSS ads.
Hi, Steve.
Do you have links to these services? I've not seen any that offer non-basement CPMs or that will accommodate small publishers. I've tried to work out how to do this with feedburner, but it appears all you can do is run adsense, which is less than ideal.
You could even, GASP, roll your own RSS feeds that have ads. That small technical limitation hardly seems to justify a moral opposition to a wonderful technology.
Please explain how someone without a programming background can roll their own RSS feeds. If there are services out there that people don't know about or tutorials they could learn from, that would be a service to everyone.
Maybe you should pay someone with the expertise to build or implement RSS ads for you? Seems funny that there is a moral opposition to having your potential vistors read your content for free (even though it is being shared by choice and is monetizable), but for some reason paying for programming help doesn't seem to be on your mind.
Hi Adam. Welcome. First, I had no idea this would be the topic du jour. I just don't enjoy using feed readers. They make the web generic and I prefer to read stories where the publisher intended them to be read. By the same thinking, I rent widescreen DVDs (so I can watch films the way the director envisioned them) rather than pan and scan versions of films.
And yes, I could always hire someone to build a custom RSS advertising system. When bootstrapping a startup though, you've got to pick your battles.
Okay, so you're only opposed to feed readers to the extent that the opportunity to monetize your content is worse in them than it is on your site on a CPM or CPC basis? A richer value proposition, in other words, would satisfy your moral obligation?
Loss of sense of destination is the other qualm I have. I like that every web site has its own look and structure. Why turn the web into one big list of headlines?
You know, I used to have that feeling--that news is better read at the destination than in an rss reader. I still certainly believe that's true for much of what I want from many sites, like discussion in the comments. But I found over time that, for many news sites, including blogs, the *words* were sufficient. The author's voice comes through. The intelligence, insight, humor, honesty--most of that survives the transition to an rss reader. That's what I've found for myself, at least.
It's also worth pointing out that this very site is building conversation around other people's stories....still, you've got to click on the link to head over there...
That's right. Different contexts serve different purposes. Ideally, I'd love the discussion about my post "Why I dislike micropayments, don’t mind charity, but have a better idea" to happen at my blog, but I don't really mind at all when people want to have that discussion in a more suitable forum. Still, if I had ads on my site--which I don't because I plan to benefit *because* of blogging, not *from* it--I'd be losing precious pageviews.