Comments on: A dangerous RSS trend

By: Luke Gedeon

Luke Gedeon — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:32:28 +0000

Ads in RSS should not be as big a deal as ads on pages. We started using ad-blockers, because we had no idea what type of ads we would find as we searched for something. When you subscribe to a blog you have a pretty good idea what you are getting yourself into.
Sure too much ad and not enough content = unsubscribe. Too bad for the author but no crisis. Just don't surprise me with off topic ads that were not part of the original deal when I subscribed.
Oh, and let's hope they never figure out how to include pop-up ads. That *would* start a revolution against RSS ads.

By: Sal Cangeloso

Sal Cangeloso — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:01:52 +0000

I haven't seen any sites with ads that are that bad. Even the big ones I read, like Boing Boing and Valleywag, have ads and sometimes double ads, but they are not bothersome enough that it makes me want to consider unsubscribing. Not only are these very low impact ads, but RSS is so much easier and faster than just reading the site they if they are giving me a full feed I can't really complain.

Some sites offer partial feeds with no advertising and full feeds with advertising. I think this is a pretty good solution for people who just hate RSS advertising.

By: StevenHodson

StevenHodson — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:51:39 +0000

Uhmm .. perhaps you didn't read close enough:

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I am not against this happening as I do the same thing here (as you can tell when you read my feeds)
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I clearly acknowledged the fact that I run ads. Perhaps if you read closer you would have realized that what I was saying that it is the increasing size of the banner ads along with feeds that contain more than one ad that is the problem.

By: James

James — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:40:01 +0000

I think I've picked up on a trend here. I noticed on their feeds that they don't show the advertisements on every item. Boing Boing has a HUGE one every third article while Valleywag has a smaller, but still pretty big ad every second one. Winextra has one small, or regular sized ad every page.

Kind of all relative. I think as long as the ad's are placed in the same position every time and don't interfere with the content I'm ok with them.

As far as an ad blocker is concerned, I wouldn't use one. It would have to be some really good content to keep me around if the site started littering itself with advertisements.

By: bz

bz — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:39:33 +0000

Ummm … I got this post in my Google Reader and guess what was at the bottom?

Yes, an ad.

“Hello? Kettle? This is pot. Are you black too?”