Google Ads - let's clear the air
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OK - the initial reaction has been pretty dark from a few of you. I honestly want to know why you hate it so much, why you see it as unethical, and why it is so much more obscene than, say, if we'd introduced a different sized banner. Is it the straw that broke the camel's back? The fact that ads are shown based on the article's content? The fact that it's Google? The fact that we make money off advertising? The design? This is not a precursor to subscription based article viewing nor is it a tip of any iceberg. This is an experiment to see if it works, if it's valuable, if we can achieve a balance, and, importantly, if it's acceptable. We want to provide advertising that is relevant, not just blast you with stuff that you simply don't care about. So let's talk this out - but please - if anyone doesn't mind or has positive comments then I'd like to hear those comments too. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
Frankly, I don't mind them at all. You are running a business, whether people like it or not (you always get those anti-establishment people, don't you?), and everything requires money to run. While I don't have a problem with them, might I recommend a service (like for people like Marc) where authors can pay instead of having AdWords added to their articles? This would be similar in nature to /. moving to a subscription a while back where you get ads intermitently throughout the message board unless you pay a subscription fee to offset the cost (also based on impressions, but you wouldn't have to and could just go with a flat rate...much easier to program! ;)). Would I pay for them? Maybe, but not because I dislike the targetted advertisement...just because. Would someone like Marc? I'm betting they would (if the price was fair). Just a guess, though.
Microsoft MVP, Visual C# My Articles
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Individually no, but in a whole you're damn sure I do (and everyone else too). It's the same way with MS, do you think they dropped the price of Office by accident or the free alternatives had something to do with it. If one of my customers had a problem, it's their problem. But, if 50% of them had a problem, it's my job to serve them. Quite frankly, too many people nowadays don't focus on the customer. And, it's disgusting the attitude that some accept now because of that. What are you paying CodeProject to let you post messages and articles besides your time? Jeremy Falcon wrote: Like you wouldn't complain on something you felt cheated out of. Whether right or wrong, wether you agree with it or not, everyone complains from time to time. Now, why don't you grow up and stop with the insults? Truthfully, I'm not much of a complainer. I will state my grievances, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt before screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs. Sorry if you were insulted, but whining over piddly stuff like this sets me off.
"Live long and prosper." - Spock
Jason Henderson
blogJason Henderson wrote: What are you paying CodeProject to let you post messages and articles besides your time? You've got it all backwards. It's because of the articles that ppl visist this site. Do you think 1.1 million developers would've registered for a site with no content? Jason Henderson wrote: but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt before screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs. That's one thing I don't understand about you people. Why in the hell do you assume I'm screaming bloody murder all the time? Is it because I'm blunt? Jason Henderson wrote: but whining over piddly stuff like this sets me off. Piddly in your eyes maybe. Which just goes to proving my point. Jeremy Falcon
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jdunlap wrote: However, I really think that you should pursue the idea of donations/optional subscriptions Personally I think this idea isn't that great. For better or worse "Donation" links make a site look unprofessional (At least to me).
Kluch wrote: Personally I think this idea isn't that great. For better or worse "Donation" links make a site look unprofessional (At least to me). The typical 'help me - I don't get a check in the mail for writing this free stuff!' donation links do look unprofessional. However, that doesn't mean that's the only way to set something up. For instance, the EFF accepts donations. So do just about all of the non-governmental public action groups. I don't think many would consider them unprofessional, and I think that CodeProject could set up a donation system that was just as tasteful while still being, at it's heart, a donation system. -- Russell Morris "So, broccoli, mother says you're good for me... but I'm afraid I'm no good for you!" - Stewy
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: but for me all these ads make me feel as if my efforts are being used for your financial benefit They are, and I think rightly so. Chris et al deserve to be paid for their efforts. Without direct, full financial support from a) subscribers or b) Microsoft, c) advertising is pretty much all that's left. Jeremy Falcon wrote: And, I can't imagine many people being motivated by that to write more articles with that in mind Sharing with the community of devs is what should motivate people to write articles (and is what I think motivates contributers to Code Project). Do you believe that the knowledge that their articles will be displayed alongside targeted ads will de-motivate article writers? I can understand the knee-jerk reaction that 'hey - I wrote that! Why are trying to make money off of it?' in general. However, that reaction just doesn't make much sense in a free-for-all site like Code Project. If you're a good article writer, there are plenty of developers who have gained financially directly or indirectly from your articles. Does that make you cringe? -- Russell Morris "So, broccoli, mother says you're good for me... but I'm afraid I'm no good for you!" - Stewy
Russell Morris wrote: If you're a good article writer, there are plenty of developers who have gained financially directly or indirectly from your articles. Good point. Hey, quit mixing reason and logic with this!!!!! ;P Jeremy Falcon
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OK - the initial reaction has been pretty dark from a few of you. I honestly want to know why you hate it so much, why you see it as unethical, and why it is so much more obscene than, say, if we'd introduced a different sized banner. Is it the straw that broke the camel's back? The fact that ads are shown based on the article's content? The fact that it's Google? The fact that we make money off advertising? The design? This is not a precursor to subscription based article viewing nor is it a tip of any iceberg. This is an experiment to see if it works, if it's valuable, if we can achieve a balance, and, importantly, if it's acceptable. We want to provide advertising that is relevant, not just blast you with stuff that you simply don't care about. So let's talk this out - but please - if anyone doesn't mind or has positive comments then I'd like to hear those comments too. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
Ads? what ads? cant see one, oh! on the left side, never looked that side untill now.
I'll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill - Dire Straits
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Jason Henderson wrote: What are you paying CodeProject to let you post messages and articles besides your time? You've got it all backwards. It's because of the articles that ppl visist this site. Do you think 1.1 million developers would've registered for a site with no content? Jason Henderson wrote: but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt before screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs. That's one thing I don't understand about you people. Why in the hell do you assume I'm screaming bloody murder all the time? Is it because I'm blunt? Jason Henderson wrote: but whining over piddly stuff like this sets me off. Piddly in your eyes maybe. Which just goes to proving my point. Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote: You've got it all backwards. It's because of the articles that ppl visist this site. Do you think 1.1 million developers would've registered for a site with no content? Do you think a site with 1.1 million developers and no fees will make money? Jeremy Falcon wrote: That's one thing I don't understand about you people. Why in the hell do you assume I'm screaming bloody murder all the time? Is it because I'm blunt? Um, maybe. Okay, yeah. Jeremy Falcon wrote: Piddly in your eyes maybe. Which just goes to proving my point. You need to learn to see the bigger picture I guess.
"Live long and prosper." - Spock
Jason Henderson
blog -
Frankly, I don't mind them at all. You are running a business, whether people like it or not (you always get those anti-establishment people, don't you?), and everything requires money to run. While I don't have a problem with them, might I recommend a service (like for people like Marc) where authors can pay instead of having AdWords added to their articles? This would be similar in nature to /. moving to a subscription a while back where you get ads intermitently throughout the message board unless you pay a subscription fee to offset the cost (also based on impressions, but you wouldn't have to and could just go with a flat rate...much easier to program! ;)). Would I pay for them? Maybe, but not because I dislike the targetted advertisement...just because. Would someone like Marc? I'm betting they would (if the price was fair). Just a guess, though.
Microsoft MVP, Visual C# My Articles
Perhaps instead of the AdWords an author could opt to put a relevant link to a website and the author could be billed by the click? Just an idea.
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OK - the initial reaction has been pretty dark from a few of you. I honestly want to know why you hate it so much, why you see it as unethical, and why it is so much more obscene than, say, if we'd introduced a different sized banner. Is it the straw that broke the camel's back? The fact that ads are shown based on the article's content? The fact that it's Google? The fact that we make money off advertising? The design? This is not a precursor to subscription based article viewing nor is it a tip of any iceberg. This is an experiment to see if it works, if it's valuable, if we can achieve a balance, and, importantly, if it's acceptable. We want to provide advertising that is relevant, not just blast you with stuff that you simply don't care about. So let's talk this out - but please - if anyone doesn't mind or has positive comments then I'd like to hear those comments too. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
Chris, The ads are fine IMO. I seem to have lots of ads for VB.NET on my articles when they are all C# articles. But, if it takes a while for the "relevancy" to kick in then I'm happy that it will sort itself out shortly. The are in an unobtrusive location - and they didn't get confused by samples of Catalan on my internationalised hangman game article. If it helps pay to keep Code Project going then I'm all for it.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September Can't manage to P/Invoke that Win32 API in .NET? Why not do interop the wiki way! My Blog
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Ads? what ads? cant see one, oh! on the left side, never looked that side untill now.
I'll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill - Dire Straits
I agree, I don't 'see' them either, I just never look at adverts.
"Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it." - Cullen Hightower
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OK - the initial reaction has been pretty dark from a few of you. I honestly want to know why you hate it so much, why you see it as unethical, and why it is so much more obscene than, say, if we'd introduced a different sized banner. Is it the straw that broke the camel's back? The fact that ads are shown based on the article's content? The fact that it's Google? The fact that we make money off advertising? The design? This is not a precursor to subscription based article viewing nor is it a tip of any iceberg. This is an experiment to see if it works, if it's valuable, if we can achieve a balance, and, importantly, if it's acceptable. We want to provide advertising that is relevant, not just blast you with stuff that you simply don't care about. So let's talk this out - but please - if anyone doesn't mind or has positive comments then I'd like to hear those comments too. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. I just went and looked at an article and it's positioned in a manner that doesn't interfere with the article at all. I know it's good to find out what the populace thinks here, but to be honest your just going to get a holy war from the slash dotties of the world who don't realize a damn thing about running a business and the articles are easily worth 100 times more (on average) than the "cost" of viewing the ad so I say good on you Chris and keep it up if it will help your bottom line. Also kudos on picking Google Ad-word ads because they are among the least obtrusive and most potentially useful to the viewer of any advertising system there is. Cheers!
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. - Ambrose Bierce -
Chris, The ads are fine IMO. I seem to have lots of ads for VB.NET on my articles when they are all C# articles. But, if it takes a while for the "relevancy" to kick in then I'm happy that it will sort itself out shortly. The are in an unobtrusive location - and they didn't get confused by samples of Catalan on my internationalised hangman game article. If it helps pay to keep Code Project going then I'm all for it.
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September Can't manage to P/Invoke that Win32 API in .NET? Why not do interop the wiki way! My Blog
Colin Angus Mackay wrote: The ads are fine IMO. I seem to have lots of ads for VB.NET on my articles when they are all C# articles. But, if it takes a while for the "relevancy" to kick in then I'm happy that it will sort itself out shortly. Just curious, but why in the world do you care how relevant they are? Bottom line is they help CP, they are unobtrusive etc etc. What's the difference if they flag something incorrectly once in a while. YOu can always toss in some keywords into your article to try and spoof the ad's to something amusing anyway right? ;)
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. - Ambrose Bierce -
OK - the initial reaction has been pretty dark from a few of you. I honestly want to know why you hate it so much, why you see it as unethical, and why it is so much more obscene than, say, if we'd introduced a different sized banner. Is it the straw that broke the camel's back? The fact that ads are shown based on the article's content? The fact that it's Google? The fact that we make money off advertising? The design? This is not a precursor to subscription based article viewing nor is it a tip of any iceberg. This is an experiment to see if it works, if it's valuable, if we can achieve a balance, and, importantly, if it's acceptable. We want to provide advertising that is relevant, not just blast you with stuff that you simply don't care about. So let's talk this out - but please - if anyone doesn't mind or has positive comments then I'd like to hear those comments too. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
My 2c is that I don't mind having the ads. They are not very obtrusive - heck, I use GMail and I don't mind the ads 'cos I get an excellent service FOR FREE - CP is no different. So no complaints here. I have some more articles planned and I certainly won't be pulling any existing ones like others have threatened. CP has made my job much easier the last 4 years - I would feel a little selfish moaning about a few ads. The cost benefits to my productivity are hard to quantify, but I'm willing to bet that they are significant. Keep up the good work Chris.
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If you ask me if I liked the Google ads, I will say no, because:
- They're ugly. Just compare with those other banners you have at CP and you'll understand what I say.
- They're not cacheable. CP is slow as a turtle since you introduced Google ads, and I think it's not a coincidence.
- I hate having an ad banner almost on the side of my bio picture. I'm ugly, and my bio picture is ridiculous, but I still hate it.
- CodeProject looks so much CodeGuru now...
If you ask me if, like Marc, I'll abandon CP, well, I will say, no, at least for the moment, but there are some things that worry me:
- Do you remember Altavista? Once it was this great search engine. Then, it started adding ads, ads, ads, and forgot what they were: a great search engine. Google then came better, but would never have the oportunity to take over Altavista if Altavista wasn't so blind.
- Average article quality is dropping fast. People have blogs now, and publish some of their articles there. There are some damn good CP writers that don't even care to put their articles here ATM, which is a very bad sign. I don't know where you'll get the money (ads, donations, store, etc), but people like Marc deserve some money for their articles, or you'll end up losing them. Actually, offering money or goodies for some good articles will atract good writers.
Like someone already said, we don't own the site, and you've made good decisions in the past, but I think you should rethink your whole business strategy. Please, don't become Altavista. I loved Altavista, but I slowly started using Google over Altavista. Now everyone uses Google. Yes, even I am blogging now!
Yikes! We'll now we have the socialist opinion. Don't you guys at CP know that you should be running this simply out of the kindness of your hearts with no regard for your own personal welfare? Hows the view up on that horse Daniel?;)
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. - Ambrose Bierce -
My 2c is that I don't mind having the ads. They are not very obtrusive - heck, I use GMail and I don't mind the ads 'cos I get an excellent service FOR FREE - CP is no different. So no complaints here. I have some more articles planned and I certainly won't be pulling any existing ones like others have threatened. CP has made my job much easier the last 4 years - I would feel a little selfish moaning about a few ads. The cost benefits to my productivity are hard to quantify, but I'm willing to bet that they are significant. Keep up the good work Chris.
Robert Edward Caldecott wrote: CP has made my job much easier the last 4 years - I would feel a little selfish moaning about a few ads. The cost benefits to my productivity are hard to quantify, but I'm willing to bet that they are significant. Keep up the good work Chris. There is the definitive statement as far as I'm concerned. I agree wholeheartedly.
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. - Ambrose Bierce -
Colin Angus Mackay wrote: The ads are fine IMO. I seem to have lots of ads for VB.NET on my articles when they are all C# articles. But, if it takes a while for the "relevancy" to kick in then I'm happy that it will sort itself out shortly. Just curious, but why in the world do you care how relevant they are? Bottom line is they help CP, they are unobtrusive etc etc. What's the difference if they flag something incorrectly once in a while. YOu can always toss in some keywords into your article to try and spoof the ad's to something amusing anyway right? ;)
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. - Ambrose BierceJohn Cardinal wrote: Just curious, but why in the world do you care how relevant they are? Because....
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September Can't manage to P/Invoke that Win32 API in .NET? Why not do interop the wiki way! My Blog
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John Cardinal wrote: Just curious, but why in the world do you care how relevant they are? Because....
"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." --Zig Ziglar The Second EuroCPian Event will be in Brussels on the 4th of September Can't manage to P/Invoke that Win32 API in .NET? Why not do interop the wiki way! My Blog
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It's pretty freakin' sad that people can take this site and it's proprietor(s) for granted and think that just because they come here and browse around and maybe contribute that they can run the show. Marc, Anders, Jeremy, tell me, do you let your customers set prices for your products? If they don't want to pay that price what do you tell them? Probably to go jump in a lake! CodeProject is like any other business - Chris and his team have to pay for the bandwidth, the servers, the salaries, etc. If you want to pull your articles, then go ahead and be jerks about it, but it would be nice for once to see you be a little more appreciative and maybe give Chris a chance to improve things before splashing your whining, baby talk all over the Lounge. Maybe some reasonable suggestions would be good. BTW Marc, you can't tell me that the free publicity you have gotten from the site hasn't helped your career. Maybe not monetarily, but I've seen a few articles about you and your MyXAML and I doubt if you would get as many free eyes anywhere else. Your lucky Chris doesn't charge you for it. Chris, I can't say I like ads, but they don't bother me all that much either. CP is still the best programming site around. Don't let the critics get you down. There are thousands more that appreciate what you've done.
"Live long and prosper." - Spock
Jason Henderson
blogWell said Jason. In fact IIRC Marc posted a message asking people to visit some other site and rate MyXAML! Cheeky.
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Genuinely curious, not implying anything, not trying to get your back up, not lashing out, not even typing this but, why do you post articles on CP? >a subscription fee for ad-free browsing That won't help your objection to the Google ads. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Ian Darling wrote: "and our loonies usually end up doing things like Monty Python." Crikey! ain't life grand?
Paul Watson wrote: Genuinely curious, not implying anything, not trying to get your back up, not lashing out, not even typing this but, why do you post articles on CP? I like writing. I think I have good ideas to share. But, about the time I found CP, I was doing some soul searching. I was frustrated with the idea of working for clients and doing cool things that nobody knew about. I found CP one day, and realized, wow, here's a lot of people writing about the cool things they are doing! I'd like to do that too. So, writing articles for CP meets a soul need. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
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OK - the initial reaction has been pretty dark from a few of you. I honestly want to know why you hate it so much, why you see it as unethical, and why it is so much more obscene than, say, if we'd introduced a different sized banner. Is it the straw that broke the camel's back? The fact that ads are shown based on the article's content? The fact that it's Google? The fact that we make money off advertising? The design? This is not a precursor to subscription based article viewing nor is it a tip of any iceberg. This is an experiment to see if it works, if it's valuable, if we can achieve a balance, and, importantly, if it's acceptable. We want to provide advertising that is relevant, not just blast you with stuff that you simply don't care about. So let's talk this out - but please - if anyone doesn't mind or has positive comments then I'd like to hear those comments too. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
From a users point-of-view, since I don't write any articles :-O, I think the ads are fine. If it keeps the site free to use, I'm all for it, especially since it is unobtrusive and based on relevancy to the article I'm reading. BW The Biggest Loser
"People look so snooty, take pills make them moody
Automatic bazootie, zero to tutti frutti"
-Hollywood Freaks