BlogAds
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James Joyner | Tuesday, April 20, 2004 |
Kevin Aylward has started an interesting discussion as to whether BlogAds have “jumped the shark.”
Personally, I’ve been quite pleased with them. Henry Copeland and Miklos Gaspar, the proprietors, have been very responsive to suggestions despite being rather overwhelmed with the explosive growth of their venture. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the amount of revenue that I’ve been able to generate with BlogAds and the performance of their javascript.
I’ve noted many of the problems that Kevin has and have mentioned several of them to Henry and Miklos. They’re working on many of them. Kevin notes that the ordering page is very cluttered. I’d note that part of the problem is that several sites–including OTB, following a trend–have multiple adstrips so that they can charge more for the “premium” placement atop the page, something that’s not doable with a single strip. I’ve suggested to Henry that they consolidate all the strips associated with a single URL in some way, removing some of the clutter.
Jen notes that the ads detract from the aesthetic appeal of sites that display them, which is certainly true. The ability to modify the adstrip CSS to conform to the overall “feel” of the page exists but few have bothered. Another problem is that some advertisers are stretching the 300 words of “displayed text” limitation to its limit by including tons of blank space. I’ve been bugging Henry about this one for a while and a technical fix is underway.
Update: The other major fix I’d like to see is for the site to retain control of the ad space. Once the ad is approved, it should remain static unless the host again approves the ad. As it is, advertisers can change the content of the ad, often drastically. The site is then either stuck with the ad or must remove the entire adstrip until they can get BlogAds to revert the ad to its original form or get the advertiser to comply.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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My site doesn't even show up on the ordering page anymore. My emails about this have gone unread. I find that kind of annoying, myself.
Three weeks in, I'm still not on the ordering page. I find that tremendously annoying.
If there were another game in town....
Strange. Steven Taylor has had problems getting on board as well.
Cleavage Chick (that's what I call her) in your own group of ads to the left is a prime example of what annoys me about the ads.
She's at least better looking than the one he put on Michele's site! Still, that ad alone pays my hosting costs for the month.
"Cleavage chick" is apparently pretty effective, too: His clickthrough is 100 times the Lamutt for Congress ad.
It's not even about getting on board. I used to be on the ordering page, and I got a steady stream of ads. It's been gone off the page for a month, and so have my ads. It sucks.
Ya know, I'm no raging feminist, but I hate that cleavage sells. Men... *disgusted snort*
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