After reading a flame up by Jeremy Zawodny, on one of his usual bitch sessions about how something doesn't suit his fancy, I decided to try and do something that'd help the situation. Jeremy was bitching about how feedster was accepting ads for viagra and how that was antithetical to the unwritten blogging credo in the war against comment spammers. Personally, I think that a site should be able to take which advertiser's money it sees fit to take, but Jeremy's attack prompted Scott Rafer to take it down. It is a smart move given Jeremy's weight in the blogging world.
In Jeremy's comments, I wrote the following:
I think we all should throw feedster a bone and help them out a bit. I just placed an ad on feedster for my company. i get a lot of value from feedster. it is a great engine. and the only one that helps me network with people on the web in real time. it is unfortunate that they need to resort to selling ads to disreputable companies, but i am sure they will find a revenue model that works soon enough.
20 days and 500 impressions later, we've received 2 clicks. Not so good. So, I am changing the approach.
Here's the old text ad:
Promote Events & Win Prizes create mailing lists, invite friends, promote events, win prizes whizspark.com
Here's the new one:
social network to win Try whizspark. Win Stuff. whizspark.com
I've also changed the target keywords.
I was considering this one, but decided against it. Maybe at a later date.
Friendster Sucks. you can't win stuff. Try whizspark. Win Stuff. whizspark.com
With that last one, I'd be taking the tack that: "any PR is better than zero PR". I'd be hitting the head on this one. Talking shit about a competitor, talking shit in general, and using trademarked names to target ads. If that isn't timely, I don't know what would be.
If nothing else, I am glad to be helping out feedster with the small ad I placed there. I use feedster every day and do get a lot of value from it. I think more people should advertise on feedster. For all this blogging stuff to support itself, we are going to need to find a way to monetize some of it. I think this can be done without compromising blogging's editorial roots. Help out Feedster. Advertise.
Very nice site. Will sure visit again.
Posted by: John | November 24, 2005 at 05:34 AM