Google Ads - let's clear the air
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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
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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 -
I read your reply about google ads after writing my message, and most of it made sense. However, I'm not sure if your intentions for writing articles aren't for your own benefit rather than for the benefit of the community/CP as you sometimes claim. Don't get me wrong, if you write articles to help yourself, then that's fine, just don't feed us a line about posting articles for the benefit of others and wanting to improve CP if that's the case.
"Live long and prosper." - Spock
Jason Henderson
blogJason Henderson wrote: Don't get me wrong, if you write articles to help yourself, then that's fine, just don't feed us a line about posting articles for the benefit of others and wanting to improve CP if that's the case. Why can't it be both? Frankly, as I just wrote to Paul Watson, writing articles for CP is a deeply satisfying thing. The fact that anything comes of it was actually quite a surprise. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
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Well, I don't have anything against those ads, if they are really needed to keep CP alive. If this avoids a monthly subscription fee, I happily accept those ads. CP is one of the best programming sites I know and will definitively not remove my articles from here just because there are ads by google at the end of my articles... As long as you don't come up with popup ads, those annoying flash overlay ads, ads in the middle of the article, it's ok imho. Can't you make the background color a bit more CP-like? Like the light yellow? Currently it looks somehow crap and destroys the CP feeling somehow :) Dominik
_outp(0x64, 0xAD);and__asm mov al, 0xAD __asm out 0x64, aldo the same... but what do they do?? ;) (doesn't work on NT)Dominik Reichl wrote: Can't you make the background color a bit more CP-like? Like the light yellow? Currently it looks somehow crap and destroys the CP feeling somehow Yes, it is a little bit jolting.
"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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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.
Good Lord, what is everyone complaining about ? The google ads are clearly marked as such, they don't take up much space, and the last time I checked, it has cost me a grand total of nothing over the course of many years to come here pretty much daily and learn, talk, ask questions, answer questions and generally chill out with developers all over the world. Code Project rocks, and not in small part because you'd take the time to ask this question, and because the necessary evil of advertising has always been handled well here, in my opinion. But, given how many people are now CP members, you'll upset a few people no matter what you do. I'd suggest offering a paid subscription model to people who don't want the ads. Then we'll see how many people REALLY think it's such a bad thing. Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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My position: The minute Chris, et al hired employees, Code Project became a business. As such, they have to make enough money to pay those who do the dirty work. As you all know, a business that is not growing is a business that is dying. I applaud the CP team for trying to raise enough money to purchase capital that will make this site a better resource for all of us. Likewise, I applaud the move to hire extra staff so that Chris can focus on the overall development and direction of CP. I don't think that CP will become unjustly enriched by placing Google ads at the bottom of every article. How often do you actually click on them? I don't recall doing it anywhere on the Web - ever. And besides, what with new equipment purchases and personnel acquisitions and retention, a lot of the money that comes in is probably going straight back into the business. Furthermore, even if CP is getting more money this way, what is wrong with that? As long as this continues to be an improving, valuable service to the development community, why would anyone care whether Chris or Nish or Smitha has a nicer automobile or an upgraded apartment? Who among us doesn't like nicer things? (If you're one of the few who enjoys subsisting on nuts and berries, please go here[^].) As an aside, I don't think it's fair to criticize CP for having an Xbox game room, or for making trips to conferences around the world. As I understand it, CP is headquartered in Dundas's offices, so it's a shared resource, one that I would venture to guess was paid for by Dundas. And besides, it's not like Nish and Smitha can just plug in and play. Secondly, part of Chris's job is to develop a feel for industry trends and stay abreast of developing technologies. How can he do that if he's not at the conferences where the bleeding-edge technologies of the future are unveiled? Bottom line: businesses need money to run. CP is a business, and we all take advantage of the services it provides. Our contributions are our articles, and let's face it - CP attracts so many visitors because of the content of these articles. Therefore it is not completely unnatural for CP to try to grow their business by making a little bit of money from said articles. Also, if I had wanted to make money from my articles, I wouldn’t have posted them here, for free, for the entire world to consume; I would have tried to develop them into commer
Well said. I absolutely agree.
"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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Marc Clifton wrote: And that's the thing--by posting articles on CP, I am saying "I approve of the ads that are on CP". I don't approve of the targeted ads. But what if Xamlon approached us like any other advertiser and said "I want to buy some banners" and they appeared on your article's pages? What if Xamlon posted a free version of their product with code and you bought ads that appeared on their pages? CodeProject is for sharing code. For Free. It was never designed to be a place where developers could freely promote third party products. If this is possible for them and achievable in a way that's sympathetic to the ideal of sharing and teaching then we have no problem with it, but it will always take a back seat to the basic premise of allowing developers who could otherwise not afford components or training to freely get the resources they need in their day to day job. If someone advertises a product that competes with your article then the idea is that the advertised product is actually at a disadvantage because it's competing with something that's free. I get the feeling you are worried that posting your code on CodeProject will expose it to the competition of those who have paid for advertising. The more exposure you get the more you will facing competing forces. All I can say is that your articles will always stand up on their own, regardless of ads that appear alongside, and that click through rates for online advertising in IT is very low. Let's say 1 in a hundred developers click on an ad that's for a competing product to your article. That's still 99 developers who read your article and didn't click. And we have 1.3 million developers a month coming through here. That's a lot of developers sticking with you, and not the competition. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
Chris Maunder wrote: But what if Xamlon approached us like any other advertiser and said "I want to buy some banners" and they appeared on your article's pages? That's a good point. But at that level, I don't think I'd really care, because the ad is generic, not targetted for a specific article. As a banner ad, it's CP that's promoting the product. As a targetted ad in my article, I feel that I'm then promoting their product. To me, that's a big difference. Chris Maunder wrote: What if Xamlon posted a free version of their product with code and you bought ads that appeared on their pages? Ironically, I have a MyXaml google ad that has Xamlon as a keyword. And they have one for MyXaml. Chris Maunder wrote: CodeProject is for sharing code. For Free. But now there's a "price". And that price is targetted ads. Advertising and "free" are pretty dicey terms to play with in the same sentence. If you had targetted ads just for open source free software, then this conversation wouldn't have happened, or at least, would have been different. Chris Maunder wrote: I get the feeling you are worried that posting your code on CodeProject will expose it to the competition of those who have paid for advertising. No. I do not want my articles advertising other people's products. CP can advertise what it wants with its banner ads. I do not want targetted advertisement crammed down my throat on the articles that I post. Plain and simple. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog