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Adverts
To be frank, I have received many comments (and occasional email), and while most of it is regarding Thunderbird, an increasing number is regarding the placement of advertisements here.
I've tried to relook at the site from a third party point of view by myself as well as by showing to my friends and colleagues, and to be honest, there is that sense of annoyance when someone has to scroll down to see the content itself, which is already wordy by nature.
However, this is a source of revenue for myself, and I do regard this as a form of payment for my work on Thunderbird changes. I've been volunteering for more than 2.5 years and I'd probably have pulled out more than a year ago if not for the ad income. Not many people donate either, but for those who did, I appreciate that. I will be starting university soon, and my university fees will be due in a couple of months time. If you do the calculations, this blog would have started out while I was in college.
Thus, as a form of compromise on my part, I will be removing the two biggest ad rectangles you currently see below the RSS link (and admittedly my biggest sources of income), as well as the link unit shown above the firefox banner and the Paypal button lower down, for everyone's benefit, in celebration of the upcoming Thunderbird 2 release. Some might make a return, but most probably no longer be placed such that one would have to scroll down to see the latest content immediately. (I use high resolutions near 1280 x 1024 and can see the content at the bottom on page load but I didn't think 800 x 600 users would have trouble reading the content at that time. Now I know.)
If there is someone who can advise me on better ad placement, I'm all for it. (you could say desperately needed; I'm not that professional.) I would want to resolve this before I create more backlash again.
Please drop me an email at swader - at - gmail [dot] com, if you wish to, or just add a comment below (hopefully honest as well).
Gary Kwong
(Thanks in part to Grey, after I stumbled on his blog Burnt Electrons, who posted his comments on this topic, and all the commenters over there as well.)
Edits: Grammar corrections. Also, the new placements are less intrusive.
Filed under 'zz - Others (pre-2008)' | Posted on 19 Mar 2007 (Mon) by Gary Kwong at 11:11 AM. (GMT+8)
Comments
Don't you think that this "Firefox with Google Toolbar" ad is pretty pointless? Whoever comes to this site either already has Firefox or knows why he doesn't want it.
Posted by: Wladimir Palant at March 19, 2007 12:25 PM
Removing the blocks surrounding the RSS link may have wound up getting you in trouble with Google. They revised their rules to prevent people from arranging ads like that to help stave off misclicks costing advertisers money. Google has horrible fraud-detection, and likes to chop people's accounts if they have any suspicion, and you'll never get a warning or an appeal if they do. So this has helped users, and helped you.
I'm also glad you saw it as constructive criticism. I love TB and have been following your blog to catch up on TB 2.0 progress. I harbor no ill will towards you. :)
I'd recommend the following:
Check out AdSense's recommended layouts. Move the blog title to the top, put the text banner currently at the very top below it, more people will actually SEE it ratehr than ignore it.
Kill the Firefox with Google Toolbar and just link to the toolbar. People coming here either have firefox or don't want it. If they have it, they won't want to reinstall it just to get a toolbar. You can still get paid for that.
Kill the Picasa and AdSense links. They're totally irrelevant to your readership. Replace it with one of the square boxes that used to be under the RSS link.
Lastly, don't do it for the money. do it for the enjoyment, or for the community. If you do it for the money only, you won't like doing it, and it'll be a drag. Find help, people willing to contribute, or relax your schedule. Maybe only update twice a week. But don't just do it for the money.
Posted by: Grey Hodge at March 19, 2007 1:16 PM
Oh, also, my display is 1280 by 800, widescreen. So even at 1024 by 768, people couldn't see any content on the first screen. I turned off my bookmarks toolbar for that screenshot, to be as generous as possible.
Posted by: Grey Hodge at March 19, 2007 1:18 PM
"Morphed" the layout some more to incorporate some changes suggested above by Wladimir & Grey.
Posted by: Gary Kwong at March 19, 2007 2:10 PM
Hi,
people like you spend a lot of time (and sometimes money to host the site) offering to the community a valuable source of information.
I have never understood why people complain when
devoted persons simply want to get some benefit
from their work.
When it comes to having ads on a blog that is on thunderbird, it puzzles me.
All readers are probably using firefox. As most of
the firefox user, I also hate ads. This is the
reason why I use adblock. You can also use various
addons to remove frames and customize the pages
you are reading.
Arnaud.
Posted by: Arnaud at March 19, 2007 4:45 PM
I too read and enjoy your updates. Thank you very much for that.
Suggestions:
- Put the google ads vertically along the right edge. That way, they allow the content to be there too and the ads are still there when the user scrolls.
- Put a border around the ads so users can see where the ads start and the content ends. Not doing it seems like you are trying to trick the user into clicking ads.
See my homepage for an example of my two suggestions: http://www.lairo.com/
Posted by: Peter Lairo at March 19, 2007 7:23 PM
Thanks for the time and effort you spend on the Rumbling Edge. I have no objection at all to looking at the ads -- you earn it!
Posted by: guanxi at March 19, 2007 8:06 PM
Have you looked at Text Link Ads? http://www.text-link-ads.com/?ref=55102 (disclaimer: I put my referrer affiliate id in that link) I've got a PR7 site, like yourself, and so far, TLA is generating a much better return than Adsense (like 4 or 5 times better).
However, my blog covers a wider range of topics, so my site might have an advantage over yours where TLA is concerned. Still, I'm sure it's worth your time to check it out.
Posted by: Dougal Campbell at March 20, 2007 3:21 AM
agreed with arnaud and guanxi.
people are so demanding and ungrateful sometimes.
thanks.
Posted by: brewt at March 20, 2007 4:44 AM
Peter: No, I'll probably not risk touching the Google code. That's been considered before though.
Dougal: About the text link ads, I'll probably try that out. Sorry, you weren't the first to suggest it and including a referrer affiliate id; I got some in my mailbox. To the rest, this just means that it'll be used in conjunction with Adsense, they should appear in the same current ad boxes and not add additional ad space.
More info here:
http://www.text-link-ads.com/faq.php
Posted by: Gary Kwong at March 20, 2007 9:05 AM
Edit: I discovered the border option already. I'll be adding that soon.
I am unlikely to add the text link ads as it does not use the current Adsense code space (if there are no ads to be displayed), and I do not want to add any more ad space. Furthermore, it requires changing code on my main index as well as adding write access to a particular file on the mozillaZine server, which I do not have access to.
I may switch to showing graphical affiliates from Text Link Ads to make use of the current Adsense code space (if no Google ads are available) instead.
2nd edit: Borders, Text Link Ads added! (Text Link Ads' graphical affiliates are shown only if no Google ads are available)
Posted by: Gary Kwong at March 20, 2007 9:21 AM
The ads do not bother me at all. Leave them up.
Posted by: Ron at March 20, 2007 4:36 PM
Dude, leave the ads, in fact, put more of them up if you need to. Tell the whiners to shove off.
Posted by: Charles Churchill at March 21, 2007 8:51 AM
3 words....Ad Block Plus.....
Posted by: JJ Washington at March 23, 2007 10:10 PM
