Odds And Ends :: Preshrunk

Odds And Ends

March 23rd, 2006 | Published in Admin | 15 Comments

Now that I’ve been back for close to a week, I’ve got a few non-tee related updates for y’all…

I’ve offloaded all of our feed traffic over to FeedBurner for the time being. This was done to get a better idea of how many subscribers we have and what sort of things you guys dig. The redirects are all in place and everything should be working.
Unfortunately, since the redirect was thrown down Bloglines is sort of being a bitch to anyone who reads the old atom.xml feed. Because of this, we’ve got about 700 subscribers who haven’t seen an update since Monday. Some of those people probably think I crawled back into my hole — and we can’t have that, can we? So if you’re one of the affected people, please feel free to give the staff at Bloglines a heads up.
So, uhm, ads… I hate them just as much as you do, but I’m really trying to cover my expenses now that I’m between jobs. And to be quite honest, just running Google’s AdWords isn’t going to cut it anymore. I’m going to be casting the net out to a couple ad brokers¹ and signing up for a few affiliate plans², but I don’t want to insult any of y’all in the process. Are there any ads that you folks wouldn’t like to see here? Don’t worry, there won’t be too many ads on a given page³ — and I’m thinking about offering an ad blocking script to people who can float a few bucks to my PayPal account.

What do all of you think? I’d love to get some feedback from everyone on everything I talked about here, so feel free to leave a comment or drop us a line, yo.

Federated Media and IndieClick, actually.
SuicideGirls, Defunker and Busted Tees seem pretty easy to get started with…
No more than a couple graphical ads per page, plus AdWords.

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null says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 3:53 pm (#)

That’s cool, we’ll have a Greasemonkey script out an hour afterwards.

Jason Cosper says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 4:02 pm (#)

I know you will. I’m sure my readers are a very resourceful lot.

But what I was getting at was the fact that maybe a few of you would still try to support what I’m doing by dropping a few bucks in my tip jar if I maintained and provided a Greasemonkey script for the users who didn’t want to see ads…

red says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 4:05 pm (#)

don’t do t-shirt ads.

busted tees may make advertising easy to employ, but their shirts are crap and you are supposed to care about that kind of thing. even with a good company, it would represent a failure of impartiality. the first time you plug an advertiser’s t-shirt under their banner ad, rss feeds will get unsubsrcibed worldwide. mine included.

Jason Cosper says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 5:16 pm (#)

You know, you’re right. I should care — and I do. Which is why I asked all of you instead of doing it and worrying about who I piss off later.

I think I’ve run one or two BustedTees shirts here because I thought they were clever. But yeah, most of their shirts do suck. So you honestly wouldn’t have to worry about me running something from them ever again.

If you say that I shouldn’t take t-shirt ads, who exactly do you suggest that I should take ads from and start affiliate programs with? Companies who make complimentary clothing like pants and jackets? Shoe manufacturers? Magazines? Lifestyle products?

You’ve got the floor, red…

Medopine says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 5:25 pm (#)

Yes to:
- general clothing websites
- shoes
- indie music sites/bands you like
- stuff YOU don’t mind seeing as ads

No to:
- pron
- loans
- credit companies
- FREE STUFF!!! CLICK THE MONKEY
- pop-ups (duh)

Seriously, try to think of the kind of banners that piss you off the most and then avoid those. I’m sure your readers are pretty much in accord with your thoughts on that subject.

Jason Cosper says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 5:45 pm (#)

Don’t worry… We will never ask you to punch a monkey, click here for a free iPod, consolidate your debt with a 2nd/3rd mortgage, get the amazing new blah blah Mastercard, etc. Nor will we ever resort to pop-ups or pop-unders.

So the more feedback that I’m getting, the more it seems like I should go with an agency like Federated Media or IndieClick rather than worry about affiliate programs.

I still want to know what the rest of you think, so please don’t think this matter is settled after a handful of comments. Speak up!

jessica says:

March 23rd, 2006 at 6:53 pm (#)

i agree with the indie music sites/bands. i don’t see that as being a conflict of interest, and it seems like a win win.

Yas says:

March 24th, 2006 at 7:23 am (#)

Does American Apparel do web ads? They’re innocuous enough (and a pretty darn good shirt maker).

Cameron says:

March 24th, 2006 at 7:52 am (#)

I think you should go with who ever will advertise with you, using Medopine’s “no to” list as a rule of thumb.

If you go with something like Federated Media or IndieClick won’t you be more hands off? That would mean that who ever advertised with you would have little or no direct contact with you no?

Jason Cosper says:

March 24th, 2006 at 8:32 am (#)

Yas: Do you remember how critical we’ve been of AA in the past? Do you think they’d run ads with us now?

Cameron: *nod* It sounds like a solid list. And with the exception of pr0n [see: SuicideGirls] it was really similar to the one I already had.

As far as what FM or IndieClick would do, I’m not sure as I haven’t heard back from either of them just yet. I very well may be a bit more hands off, but they both have systems in place and are a little more experienced in ad sales than I am. It’s a trade off I’d be willing to make if I didn’t have to worry about dealing with all that mess.

Paul Farnell says:

March 24th, 2006 at 9:12 am (#)

I’d be happy with ads, and I think Medopine’s got the right idea there.

Also, I think you could do some kind of membership thing like Daring Fireball does - not just an ad-free version of the site like you suggested, but perhaps a t-shirt too? I’d happily pay around $20-35 for a year’s membership of your site, if there were a few reasonably meaningful benefits (like a t-shirt, and maybe some kind of extra, members-only content - for example on DF, John offers access to his link blog to members).

Yas says:

March 24th, 2006 at 10:04 am (#)

Jason: I guess you’re right, but regardless — your site gets traffic, and traffic equals sales. Whether it’s AA or someone else, I think that marketing clothing companies couldn’t hurt. I’d stay away from t-shirt sites, though.

Cameron says:

March 24th, 2006 at 12:07 pm (#)

Jason, I was thinking that hands off would be better. That way it removes any potential conflicts of interest. If some third party is doing the actual ad placement, then no one can say anything about you choosing favs.

Cameron says:

March 24th, 2006 at 6:10 pm (#)

Oh, and as for Suicide Girls etc, as long as the banners are safe for work, I couldn’t give a crap.

Dave Rambo says:

March 30th, 2006 at 12:43 pm (#)

http://www.lafraise.com has a 10% affiliate commission program that might be worth checking into.

that and they have some slick shirts. (but then we’re back to the conflict of interest subject)

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