30
May

With RSS ads is it right to form communities around feeds

Posted by Steven Hodson in Friday, May 30th 2008      

Some of the buzz today is about the word that Google AdSense will start to become available for blog owners who are using Feedburner to handle their RSS feeds. Apparently it will be in limited testing for selected blogs but roll out later to all Feedburner members. This is something that a lot of Feedburner customers have been hoping for since Google first bought the service almost a year ago but it raises an interesting question which Adam Ostrow asked on Twitter

Adam Ostrow on Twitter

The idea being here that if I as a content producer have ads in my RSS feed and some social media site is using that feed in one way or another; but in such a fashion that strips the ad, is this fair to me the content producer.

This situation is further aggravated if the social media site itself has RSS feed in which they have included advertisements. Mathew Ingram responded on Twitter with

Mathew Ingram on Twitter

Personally I think that if I am running ads in my RSS feed it is being done to try and monetize my content in another fashion and when a social site takes that feed and basically strips out the ad and regurgitates in one fashion or another without my prior consent then I think it is wrong. Now if they contact me and ask nicely the chances are that I would say "have at it bud". The idea being here that you treat me with respect and I’ll do the same. But when you just willy nilly take my content that I am obviously trying to monetize and use it for your own benefit then I’ll get down right pissy.

However like Adam said - Thoughts?

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under: Blogging, Google, Internet    

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Viewing 24 Comments

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    You know, Allen's "Buck-a-feed" model is starting to look nice. Then the blog gets partially monetized by the aggregator, the aggregator gets monetized by... wait. I knew there was a hole in here somewhere.
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    I'm glad you raised this issue, Steve - it's one that's concerned me for quite a while (although when I first wrote about this, my concern was how RSS search engines would deal with ads - see http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2005/04/rss_ads_no... ).

    I have no problem with services that build communities around full-text feeds, provided that the content is attributed and any ads are retained. IMO, when you publish an RSS feed, you do so with the knowledge that your words of wisdom could potentially be repurposed elsewhere. Items from your feed may show up in search results, appear in link blogs, be reformatted for display in an aggregator, etc. If you rely on revenue from ads in your feed, you have no guarantee that those ads will still appear when your feed is repurposed.

    FeedDemon (like Shyftr) will do the right thing and retain the ads, but it's a safe bet that ad-stripping will be available in some other aggregators, and I wouldn't be surprised to see services which remove ads and insert their own. It's up to the community to call these services out - as I'm sure you will :)

    PS: Jason Kottke interviewed several aggregator developers about this topic back in 2004 - see http://www.kottke.org/04/12/blocking-rss-advert...
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    I agree.

    I think most people who have developed any type of social aggregation service in the past few years has read your opinions heavily. :-) I remember reading that bit about filtering "items" and how that might be abused to filter "ad serving" items... I remember thinking of the implications of that early on... We never wanted to strip ads or try to skirt the bloggers revenue model, whatever that may be... It's hard to consider every angle... Some people tell us "if you want community, then trim my content down to fair use 150 Chars. or less" and then Steve so aptly points out that trimming the html and chopping the content to 150 chars. is in essence stripping out ads intended it to be there... Everybody is right, yet nobody is right... It's a baffling scenario but, like you, I jut have a passion for the stuff.. what can I say... :) (Impressive speed too... FeedDemon is mentioned, here's Nick Bradbury... hehehe... I like it.)
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    I actually didn't find this post because it mentioned FeedDemon -- I've been subscribed to WinExtra for a while, and it remains one of my favorite reads. But then again, I did find this blog in the first place because Steven posted something about FeedDemon... :)
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    hehehe... my mistake.... consider my initial remark backdated. I've only had the pleasure of WinExtra for a few months but I must say it's one of the daily dozen ;)
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    Thanks Nick for jumping in here. It is good that people such as yourself and Matt think the questions being asked about things like this are important enought to become involved in the conversation. In the end it is the users that win and that is a good thing IMO.
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    Hey hey hey... let's take a step back here for one second. Where on earth did you get "in such a fashion that strips the ad" ?? Adam said nothing about that whatsoever in his tweet... nor was it even remotely implied. He was simply asking if the ability to place ads in feeds from one of the largest advertising networks in the world would start to cool some people's jets a little bit about social aggregation services (sites "like" Shyftr). I took the opportunity to reply to him and understand what he was asking... a novel idea, wouldn't you agree? ;-)

    For the record: Shyftr does not strip ads, we have never stripped ads, we abhor the practice of tampering with the content of the feed in any way.

    Like any RSS aggregator, we are in no position to ever display javascript from 3rd parties. That is out of protection for our application and our users experience. Google knows this (they do the same with their Google Reader product, as does Bloglines, etc...) and it's easy to assume that this fact is part of the reason Google did not just plop AdSense into the feeds right out of the Feedburner acquisition gates, they need to have a javascript-less solution which their traditional AdSense program was not.

    So Google added AdSense to Feedburner... whoopty-doo, to be honest. It's not the first time advertisements will be appearing in feeds. I've been looking at feeds full of ads for quite some time now... and I use Shyftr... therefor you can ascertain that Shyftr is not stripping any ads. Why would we go to the hassle of tasking our system to snoop out, recognize, and in turn remove something that may or may not be an advertisement?!?! It's a baffling notion. If people would simply use a little common sense they could quickly write off the idea of Shyftr spending the overhead to strip ads... you're talking about an application that just recently acknowledged that aspects of our system are running too slowly and announced aggressive measures to speed things up... why would we have ever instituted a process that costs resources and would no doubt upset the content contributors at the same time? Sometimes I just don't think things are thought through... the hope of whipping up some Friday evening controversy is worth more than the facts.
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    Okay let's look at this way from the content producers POV for a sec. I / They have the feed setup so that each post goes out with an ad attached to it. Any social media service that then takes that feed and re-purposes to be displayed with either just the headline and/or a snippet of the post ext but without the ad that with the feed. Now if this isn't removing my / their ad what would you suggest it is?

    I never mentioned Shyftr in my post specifically for this reason I didn't want the discussion being colored by any preconcieved opinions but since you made the statement I ask you - if you are showing a portion of my (or any content producer) post that went out with an ad attached to it on you site without that ad then what do you call this "manipulation" of my content?

    Now I will admit that I don't know exactly how sites like Shyftr repurpose the RSS feed to be displayed on their aggregating sites and as such I am more than willing to stand corrected. I was expressing my viewpoint - which I believe I have proven in the past can be changed if the argument is logical and even. It was also why I ended it off with a question because I am interested in all the points of view on the matter.

    And to clarify I didn't write this post to "whip up some Friday night controversy" ... I couldn't care less about that. I am interested in opinions nothing more nothing less.
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    This most certainly IS your ad being removed... If I would have used a little common sense myself than I could have seen, clearly, that by removing the entire body of the post (showing just the headline) then the ad gets removed with it... Touche, sir. :-) (What of search results? headlines and snippets link to the pages with ads, those ads are not in the search results but RATHER most search engines insert their OWN ads right by your stripped content, ads on which you make nothing, not a dime... how does that make you feel?)

    I understand that you did not mention Shyftr, but it was right there at the top of the post (in big graphical text) and the comments kept up the routine... My first comment (the one that starts out "hey hey hey") was addressed to the entire thread and not you 100% specifically... the first paragraph, yes... the rest: no. I do apologize for that sounding so hostile... lol.. in re-reading it, were I you I would probably feel just as attacked as I felt going through this page for the first time... That was not my intent and I hope you can accept my apologies for that. It was not too long ago that an entire weekend was devoted to misunderstanding the intent of our small service and it resulted in some pretty hurtful character attacks so I am on the lookout for Friday nights these days. it's hard not to be cautious of them when they've bitten you before. It's a silly tradition... like hazing. I should know better though... your "no BS" outlook on things from hearing you on the Sunday podcasts for the past few months... the last thing you care about is starting a bitchmeme. You probably think they are just as ridiculous as I do... hehehe.

    All that said: Shyftr is an RSS Reader... like your feed reader we show the ads when they are present... we have a headline only view, like your reader, but when you open the headline to read what has been offered in the feed (whether partial or full), the ad is going to be there whether the reader likes it or not... we are never going to implement a measure to remove that ad. We are an ethical couple of guys and we care about preserving your content in the way you expected it to be seen... I, too, like to soak up all these differing opinions (As you can see I love to draw opposing viewpoints out in to the open so they can be hashed and re-hashed and debated and learned from, hopefully on both sides)... but when it all boils down, RSS Readers are interested in providing a service to your readers.... when you encourage someone to subscribe to your feed, we offer our machines to serve that purpose for the both of you. It's an exciting space and we do it because we love blogs, and social media, and community... I'm glad that Google has announced AdSense for feeds... I hope a lot of people are able to take advantage of it and I hope it yields positive returns for content publishers... I just know that when it comes to AdSense the only real winner is Google and a lot of people are full of false hopes that AdSense for feeds will somehow be different than AdSense on the page in terms of revenue... it wont. I look forward to a day when the social media aggregation landscape can work with content producers to generate "real" revenue and everyone can be happy... this is not happening overnight, but it will be more likely to become a reality if content producers do not feel threatened by aggregation services like Shyftr, ReadBurner ,FriendFeed, etc... these are all mechanisms in which the community discovers great new content. :-)
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    This is what I like about having conversations like this - intelligent people (I like to think I fit in there :) ) willing to discuss differing viewpoints and willing to conceed when they are wrong - or misunderstanding.

    I understood you feelings on the matter because of past dustups over services like yours which is exactly the reason why I didn't take it personally and get testy back atcha :)

    If this is indeed the way that Shyftr works then I have no problem what so ever with what you are doing. I also am in full agreement with you about Google and who the real winner is in dealings with them. I hold no illusions that by being able to have AdSense ads in my RSS feed my prayers are going to be answered. Far from it.

    Thank you Matt for an excellent conversation. I really appreiated it and I also learned a few things about Shyftr as well. I don't use it and really don't see when I would but you have obviously done your very best to think your concept through and you and your partner(s) should be commended for that.
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    I love a good debate... I wished we could kick it up a little more often. ;)

    I'm glad I could share some of where we, as service providers, are coming from and that you have bit more of an understanding of what it is we are TRYING to achieve... (nothing is perfect, but we have the best intentions).

    Thank you in return for such a hot topic to close my week with... Clearly it's going to be fodder for the weekend... and i can't wait to tune in Sunday night and hear MY version of the A-List hash it out on the L33T Tech News Podcast. :-)
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    I thought the question itself was pretty simple: if one decides to have ads in their feed, can services like Shyftr that use full feeds strip the ads out? The answer is simple too (for me): sites like that shouldn't be able to remove the ads any more than Google Reader.

    Provided that all the services like Shyftr agree with that, that's pretty simple. But, if they don't it complicates the conversation :-)
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    It's simple... we agree with that. This whole discussion being about Shyftr is ridiculous. ;)
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    yes, the inherent problem is being limit to 140 characters ... didn't mean to pick on you Matt but it was the first reference that came to mind when I posed my question :-)
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    Don't get me wrong Adam... I'm thrilled that Shyftr is what came to mind. :-) No apologies needed my friend!

    In all honesty (up until I just read "pick on you", lmao) I thought your question was batting for our team... knowing that you manage an aggregation service of your own and have a vested interest in seeing the aggregation playing field open for participation. :)

    Seriously though, I understand where you were coming from... I wish I believed the answer to your Tweet was, "you bet!!" ... but I know that people who had a problem before will continue to have a problem. It is all about relative perception at this point... everyone is having their say and vetting their opinions... which are all very important in the evolution of the space, I'm just happy to be a part of it all, regardless. The web is a wild ride, as we all know.

    P.S. did you get a new microphone yet?
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    totally, and I'm undecided myself on the issue (both as a publisher at Mashable an an aggregator with RB), hence why I posed the question.

    and no mic yet, though a circuit city trip is on the agenda for this weekend ... hopefully we'll bring the show back next week and talk about this very issue :-)
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    Actually Matt I agree with you. Just picking on any one service is wrong and which is why I purposefully didn't try and name any particular service in the post. I was just offering up a general opinion and also I left it off as being a question to get some feedback on the topic.
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    This conversation is going to get real boring, real fast.

    Sure, let's ban ads on RSS. Let's ban ads any time user generated content exists. Let's ban ads near places I might comment too. This is stupid. So Steven, if you enable comments on your site, and I own the comments, you shouldn't make any money from the site.
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    Who said anything about banning ads?

    I didn't.