Pro-Ad Blog
November 22, 2005 2:18 PM   Subscribe

Pro-Ad Blog is a website for bloggers who choose to put advertising on their blogs. Aparently an answer to Ad-Free Blogs, this bunny seems to be very happy for the monthly check from Google Adsense.
posted by neo (24 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
don't owls eat bunnies?
posted by leotrotsky at 2:26 PM on November 22, 2005


Do any webmasters really make money from such ads? I run a high-traffic forum, but haven't bothered with outside ads as I figure they're obnoxious for my users, and not worth the $10-20 chump change I'd be expecting.
posted by rolypolyman at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2005


I hate ads on blogs (remember when it was controversial?), but I gotta say, that owl button is ghastly.
posted by frykitty at 2:37 PM on November 22, 2005


The "ad-free" thing just seems kind of pretentious, to me. And the "pro-ad" thing just seems reactionary. Better is to just put ads on your blog if you want, or not, and either way don't pretend that you're tuning in to some important ethical/moral truth. And especially don't pretend that you're "defending the medium" against some kind of "corruption."
posted by lodurr at 2:38 PM on November 22, 2005


step 1: get people to link to your site
step 2: put an ad for google adsense

In one step, you've created a 'movement' and a way to make more money from ads! hooray!
posted by cell divide at 2:41 PM on November 22, 2005


ahem, cell divide, that's clearly two steps. I'm incensed.
posted by chrominance at 2:49 PM on November 22, 2005


Isn't this debate about two or three years behind the times? The question was asked and the Pro-ad crowd survived and the medium hasn't suffered.

Regardless, the pro or anti-ad position will be solved by the readers of blogs. Seeing that BoingBoing, DailyKos, Instapundit all carry ads (Not to mention Gawker and Weblogs Inc make their living with them), starting a movement to prevent them now seems a tad futile.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I've got ads on my blog.
posted by AccidentalHedonist at 2:52 PM on November 22, 2005


That's funny, you don't smell like incensed.
posted by lodurr at 2:52 PM on November 22, 2005


Not to mention, people just don't care. They'll do anything for some cash. Throw some ridiculous targeted-ads on my blog? Sure. Tattoo Golden Palace on my head? Sign me up. A bumper sticker on my car might win me free concert tickets? Kick ass. It's all for sale, no matter how personal (and it isn't political any more, the personal is a consumer whore).
posted by panoptican at 2:55 PM on November 22, 2005


the pro or anti-ad position will be solved by the readers of blogs. Seeing that BoingBoing, DailyKos, Instapundit all carry ads (Not to mention Gawker and Weblogs Inc make their living with them), starting a movement to prevent them now seems a tad futile. - AccidentalHedonist

(Not to mention that MeFi has ads, and the income from them must be partly responsible for #1's ability to work on MeFi full time. I think Matt's done an admirable job of keeping the ads unobtusive. But they are there. If you haven't logged out in a while, log out now and surf around MeFi for a bit. There's a lot more ads when you aren't a member.)
posted by raedyn at 2:59 PM on November 22, 2005


It's all for sale, no matter how personal (and it isn't political any more, the personal is a consumer whore).

But which side are you on, pro or anti ads?
posted by theorique at 3:03 PM on November 22, 2005


But which side are you on, pro or anti ads?

Golden Palace has tattooed me a record forty-nine times. Now I just sit here at this computer all day, never leaving, typing out pointless things because (1) I'm rich and (2) I look terrible with all the tattoos. Every few weeks though, the Golden Palace folks come by and drag me out to some event. They leash me up and get some guy to walk me around with a camera focused on... well whatever since I'm just a giant tattoo at this point. I'm not sure why they film me. I think the broadcast it to the internet or else beam it to space. I heard once from one of my Golden Palace tattoo buddies that they are involved in some heavy conspiracies to keep aliens from every thinking about fucking with us and the tattooed people play a prominent role in accomplishing this goal.
posted by panoptican at 3:12 PM on November 22, 2005


The ads are just a tool to keep the content flowing from my perspective. I plan on keeping my site ad free the time comes that I might need to put up ads to pay for bandwidth.
posted by Captaintripps at 3:16 PM on November 22, 2005


A single click-through from Google Adsense can easily pay a $1 or more. Really surprised me.
posted by smackfu at 3:22 PM on November 22, 2005


This all stemmed from a series of posts on Keri Smith's blog as a reaction to, amongst other things, the ads that are now on Dooce (which allow her to pay for her mortgage and raise her family).

I've got ads on my blog(s), and -- to answer rolypolyman -- they pay for the hosting costs (of a dedicated server). A necessary evil for me to keep running sites that I want to be free for the end user.
posted by Robot Johnny at 3:23 PM on November 22, 2005


The relative quality of the bunny vs. the owl seems to speak in favor of ads.

/sweeping generalization
posted by zanni at 3:25 PM on November 22, 2005


I just looked at the the "Pro-Ad Blog". It's one page with some icons to put on your blog. And of course there's an ad. I thought it would be more interesting than that, a "pro-ad" blog if you will.
posted by smackfu at 3:27 PM on November 22, 2005


Philip Greenspun on Google AdSense, from about a month ago. Of course, Greenspun's website gets a lot of traffic.
posted by russilwvong at 3:27 PM on November 22, 2005


I've got adsense on my blog, but anyone who bothers logging in (via account creation, or via openid/typekey/etc mechanisms) is treated to an adless blog.

If I ever see a spike in driveby traffic, adsense will help offset a bit of the bandwidth cost. Folks who regularly swing by, though, won't be bothered by them. Seems simple enough.
posted by verb at 3:32 PM on November 22, 2005


Why put that bunny image on your blog when it takes up space that could be used for ads?
posted by normy at 4:07 PM on November 22, 2005


rolypolyman -- One of my house payments will be made by Google this year because of the ads on my fairly low-traffic but specific-interest site. I just wish that I'd done it earlier.

I had ads on another site with similar traffic and was making no $$ at all. It all depends on the ads that get pulled for the content...
posted by john m at 6:59 PM on November 22, 2005


You can tell a lot about someone from their position on advertising.

The well-off loathe advertising and tend to be vocal about it. These are the people you hear jabbering about 'micro-payments' and subscription content (or used to, before it become embarrassingly obvious that neither were goin anywhere). To this group, paying $35 for a year's subscription to Salon (if they enjoy Salon regularly) is a slight inconvenience, in that they've got to enter a credit card number. The money itself is very nearly irrelevant.

The less well-off don't mind ads, because ads mean that someone else is paying so that they can get their content for free or cheap. They don't mind ads in the newspaper because it means they can get it for 50 cents; they don't mind watching (read: letting run in a background tab) stupid Flash crap on Salon because it means that they can read Salon.

Salon's dual pricing model (free with ads or paid sans ads) is ideal, because it caters to both groups. I doubt most of the people to whom it's worth $35 a year to read Salon would spend much time there if they had to watch a movie to access each article; contrariwise, I doubt most of the people who are willing to sit through the ads would be willing to shell out $35 if that were the only option. Salon is losing very few paid subscribers through its ad-supported option and very few ad eyeballs through its subscription option. My prediction is that we will see more of this in the future, and less of the WSJ/NYT free vs. premium content model, which I suspect is already failing miserably.

Of course, there are sites that don't fit this model, such as MeFi — I'm guess many more users paid their $5 to post than to avoid ads.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 7:56 PM on November 22, 2005


Philip Greenspun on Google AdSense, from about a month ago.

It's a long, long way from the golden days of the dot.com boom.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:23 AM on November 23, 2005


I have nothing against ads. But isn't the Pro-Ad blog just another way of making money? That button on the bottom is to make referral $$$ via the Google Adsense program.
posted by justcurious at 5:16 PM on November 23, 2005


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