CP Ads - Missing point?
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I don't think the amount received would make sense at all. How much do you xpect to get in a month? Flipping burgers is probably ten times more economical (plus you meet a lot of fat people and feel better about yourself) My most recent article would be absolutely uneconomical from a commercial standpoint. Getting another $10 for it would mean absolutely no motiviation at all.
we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is Vonnegut jr.
sighist || Agile Programming | doxygenpeterchen wrote: My most recent article would be absolutely uneconomical from a commercial standpoint. Getting another $10 for it would mean absolutely no motiviation at all. Ditto. Jeremy Falcon
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In some cases, targeted ads can actually help articles as the author is giving free working solution with source for the products that are being advertised. :) //Start of joke Never comment ur code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand !!! //End of joke
For myself, I have benefited from CP because it contains many articles that have been useful to me. I have also benefited by the feedback I receive on the articles I post. And now, with the google ads, I will receive one more benefit - if the ads are targeted properly, they might be of interest to me, and so I believe I will be much more likely to click them, than on the banner ads. Because of this (possible) benefit, and because the google ads are tucked away at the bottom of articles, I do not find them intrusive, and I am willing to give them a chance, as Chris has asked. (But change the colors, please).
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Nishant S wrote: And to say that an author will want to remove his articles because he is mentally against putting contextual ads on his article is somehow ungrateful sounding in my opinion. Well, here's one of many possible responses. When I first wrote articles for CP, there were no targetted ads. Now, Chris has made a change that causes me to reconsider whether I want my articles on CP. Ungrateful? I'm incredibly grateful for CP, both as an author and as a user. But I really can't abide with this idea of targetted ads. It crosses the line for me. Some people don't have a problem with it, and that's fine too. Nishant S wrote: An author gets a lot out of CP, so why can't CP get something back from his/her articles? As I've said before, show me the donate button and I'll click on it. And what CP gets back is, by being the #1 coder site for its genre, it attracts ads from people like Microsoft as a result of the quantity and quality of the articles posted there. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
Marc Clifton wrote: it attracts ads from people like Microsoft as a result of the quantity and quality of the articles posted there I wish that were true, Marc. I really do. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
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Also, before the commons start assuming everything I believe again let me just say this: I personally don't intend on pulling my articles. I don't intend to stop writing them (if I can stop procrastinating). I do, however understand the disagreement of some. And, I don't want to see CP turn the way of the dark side. Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: before the commons start assuming everything I believe Could you please translate that? "the commons"
"No matter where you go, there your are." - Buckaroo Banzai
-pete
palbano wrote: Could you please translate that? "the commons" What I meant by that was the ones to frequent the message boards in general CP populous. Jeremy Falcon
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Marc, I appreciate you not wanting your articles making money for those companies that you have not personally endorsed. But that money, i believe, comes second to CodeProject getting money to keep the site up and running. The reason why I believe it comes second, is that in effect, CodeProject is allowing you to advertise your work and therefore you profit from the free service they provide you. So explain to me the difference between you benefiting from CodeProject, and CodeProject benefiting from you? Which therefore means you benefit, by keeping the site up. I think it's widely agreed that code and articles written on this site have benefitted many people. Not only people, but companies who have used this knowledge to incorporate into their own commercial products. So here, you articles, code, and ideas are being used for financial benefits behind your back. Is that ok, as long as it is behind your back and you don't see it ?? p.s. I think your articles are great and seriously hope you do not remove them from the site. Jubjub
Good perspective. Josef Wainz Software Developer
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Marc Clifton wrote: it attracts ads from people like Microsoft as a result of the quantity and quality of the articles posted there I wish that were true, Marc. I really do. cheers, Chris Maunder Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
Chris Maunder wrote: I wish that were true, Marc. I really do. What about those FrontPage ads? Isn't FrontPage a Microsoft product, or have I been seeing things? Right now, there's a Microsoft Visual Studio.net premium sponsor box sitting in the banner, along with a Windows Embedded ad. When I wrote "it attracts ads from people like Microsoft as a result of the quantity and quality of the articles posted there" and you replied as you did, do you mean that Microsoft doesn't put ads on CP because of the # of members attracted by the articles? I'm confused. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
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Marc Clifton wrote: But I really can't abide with this idea of targetted ads. It crosses the line for me. I've noticed that you've mentioned that you think this whole "targetted ads" thing is unethical in your opinion. Could you make it clearer how exactly it is unethical? [Perhaps you might have done so alreday in some other post that I've missed, if so apologies] Is it CP that's being unethical by putting Google ads on articles? Or is it the Google ads system that you think is unethical? What is unethical about showing an ad that is somehow connected to the core topic of the article that a user is reading? Nish p.s. I am seriously interested in knowing the reasons for so many people getting so angry. I am not even remotely thinking of a debate.
Nishant S wrote: Could you make it clearer how exactly it is unethical? I don't write articles to sponsor other people's products. I write articles to share my code. A targetted ad, based on the content of my article, is taking advantage of my work in a way that I never intended nor authorized nor will permit. Nishant S wrote: Is it CP that's being unethical by putting Google ads on articles? Or is it the Google ads system that you think is unethical? CP. The Google ads system is fine. The fact that I, as an author, don't have a choice as to whether I want to have targetted ads running on my articles is frankly insulting. I feel personally abused by this. Give me a choice. People who don't care, they can have them. People who do have a problem with the ads, like me, can turn them off. Nishant S wrote: What is unethical about showing an ad that is somehow connected to the core topic of the article that a user is reading? As I said, I don't write articles to promote other people's products for free, off of my hard work. Nishant S wrote: p.s. I am seriously interested in knowing the reasons for so many people getting so angry. I am not even remotely thinking of a debate. No problem. These are great questions, Nish. They help to clarify the core issues. Anger is secondary emotion. Here are my primary emotions: I am very disappointed with CP right now. I am displeased with this google ad thing. I've made certain assumptions about how my articles would be treated, and I feel that I've been let down. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
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I understand you sticking to your beliefs Marc. It would be a sad day if it comes to loosing your valuable work however.:(( Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fuity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? Muse on it further, I shall return! - David Williams (Little Britain)Thanks Antony. It's a sad day that CP has to use my hard work as basis for creating ads to promote other people's products, so that it can generate reveunue for itself. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
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Nishant S wrote: Could you make it clearer how exactly it is unethical? I don't write articles to sponsor other people's products. I write articles to share my code. A targetted ad, based on the content of my article, is taking advantage of my work in a way that I never intended nor authorized nor will permit. Nishant S wrote: Is it CP that's being unethical by putting Google ads on articles? Or is it the Google ads system that you think is unethical? CP. The Google ads system is fine. The fact that I, as an author, don't have a choice as to whether I want to have targetted ads running on my articles is frankly insulting. I feel personally abused by this. Give me a choice. People who don't care, they can have them. People who do have a problem with the ads, like me, can turn them off. Nishant S wrote: What is unethical about showing an ad that is somehow connected to the core topic of the article that a user is reading? As I said, I don't write articles to promote other people's products for free, off of my hard work. Nishant S wrote: p.s. I am seriously interested in knowing the reasons for so many people getting so angry. I am not even remotely thinking of a debate. No problem. These are great questions, Nish. They help to clarify the core issues. Anger is secondary emotion. Here are my primary emotions: I am very disappointed with CP right now. I am displeased with this google ad thing. I've made certain assumptions about how my articles would be treated, and I feel that I've been let down. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
Thanks for the reply Marc. While my views might not fully match the ones you have, I at least fully understand the reasons why you are annoyed. Nish p.s. The post-voters had a good day, having so many posts to give their 5s and 1s to :)
My take on gmail - Is gmail just a fashion statement? My blog on C++/CLI, MFC/Win32, .NET - void Nish(char* szBlog); My MVP tips, tricks and essays web site - www.voidnish.com
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Chris Maunder wrote: I wish that were true, Marc. I really do. What about those FrontPage ads? Isn't FrontPage a Microsoft product, or have I been seeing things? Right now, there's a Microsoft Visual Studio.net premium sponsor box sitting in the banner, along with a Windows Embedded ad. When I wrote "it attracts ads from people like Microsoft as a result of the quantity and quality of the articles posted there" and you replied as you did, do you mean that Microsoft doesn't put ads on CP because of the # of members attracted by the articles? I'm confused. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
Hey Marc, I think Chris' point is that advertising from companies like Microsoft don't come simply from the quality and quantity of articles, but from long hours of pursing these opportunities in Seattle, San Francisco and other places and from the hard work of Bianca, Chris and myself. I hope you appreciate there's a lot going on to make CodeProject successful. Absolutely the contributions of authors like you are critical, but making sure that CodeProject is on people's radar screens (like Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, Intel and others) is a lot of very hard work, and represents literally years of invested time. It's all a big intertwined web. Authors that want either the satisfaction of posting their articles, or want to promote their own interests write material. We take that material and bring it to the attention of big players in the market. We work hard to build self-reinforcing partnerships with other sites, and as a result articles posted on CodeProject are ranked very well on Google. This doesn't happen by accident, it takes a boatload of hard work. The result, we hope, is that everyone does well. Article authors end up with tons of exposure through CodeProject, and CodeProject continues to grow and prosper. There seems to be some concept that we're all smoking cigars and drinking scotch, rather than the reality that we're putting in very long days, working weekends, and racing in at 3am to reboot servers or deal with technical outages. Trust me, there's far more of the latter than the former. CodeProject needs a lot more investment. We need more people, more servers, more bandwidth, and this all costs money. Trust me, we absolutely hear what you're saying and we're thinking hard about ways to both grow the site and not violate the spirit of what CodeProject is. We love CodeProject, we think it's an amazing thing and the last thing we want to do is screw it up. We want it to grow, it's as simple as that. David
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I generally agree, however the problem with Ads (and I can only speak for myself) is that I ignore them, they are intrusive and generally do not work. If I am looking for a particular product or service I don't wade through Ads on any site to find such. It is extremely rare that an Ad would catch my eye and be for a product service that I am currently looking for. Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fuity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? Muse on it further, I shall return! - David Williams (Little Britain)Well, you still fit into the advertising model even when you ignore them. Advertising is never 100% and is not sold that way. Advertisers pay many to have their ad shown to people and expect a very small amount of a people to respond. Typical banner ads are usually 1.5% or lower click through rates. You say that it is extremely rare that an ad will catch your eye, this is normal. It is those times that it does that they advertisers are paying to achieve. Like a billboard along the highway will be visible by everyone that passes by, they put the advertisement there for those few that actually look up and see it. That is typical advertising as we know it on the net. They are paying in a hopes that you will look at them some time and possible respond. Now there is even more important factor here. Many people that appreciate the services or benefits that they receive from a site, will actually try to the see the ads from time to time since they know that is what supports the site and they wish to support that site. That is where we can easily support CP, if we use the site and appreciate the service it provides then it is up to us to actually check out their advertisers when we have time to see if they offer something of interest to us. For an example, this last spring I had to evaluate PDF libraries that we could access PDF forms for reading and writing in C#. Since I am a frequent user of CP, I checked at TallComponents first since they are a supporter of CP. It just so happened that I found them the best suited for our purpose that did not rely on COM/Active X and so we went with their product. I make myself actually see the ads on CP as there are sometimes things I do not want to miss. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
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One way to appease some of the article authors who are upset about the google ads would be to offer a bounty from the advertising revenue to the top rated articles each month, or to the competition winners.
Well, again the point is missed, the author has already recieved payment by the benefits they have enjoyed through CP. Why do they need more? If they are only interested in earning money from their articles, then they best move to magazine filler, if there articles are worthy enough. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
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You make some good points. The ads don't really bother me, apart from the fact that the google ads look tacky and don't fit in with the colour scheme. There is the also implied endorsement of the products advertised by the writer of the article. This probably be rectified by making the ads look a little more like that rest of the CP ads. And maybe a statement above the box, saying the author of the article in no way endorses the products being advertised. Rocky Moore wrote: The missing point is simply that we all benefit from CP and CP should be a flourishing business. Does not matter if their page is 90% ads, if that is what it will take to keep CP going, then great! I don't like the sound of that at all. 90% ads will turn us into CodeGuru. Whilst I certainly have more faith in Chris than I do the bunch of *expeletive deleted* behind CodeGuru, the day there are more ads than content is the day that CodeProject dies. Rocky Moore wrote: People have talked about donations to CP to make sure it continues to grow. Can you consider you time to be a donation to help CP grow? That can be in the form of articles, posting messages, promoting CP or simply browsing around their advertisers and selecting a few that are of interest to you. Do we need a donation button? How about we just donate a little time in one form or another? As somebody who couldn't write a good article to save his life, that avenue is closed to me. Whilst I can be of a little help in the forums, that isn't going to keep CP running. I evanglise CP as much as I can. In job interviews, two of the questions I ask are "Do you have an MSDN subscription and what does your team think of CodeProject" Currently when purchasing from the CP shop, you can get CP supporter status. All I'm asking is that we are given the opportunity to purchase that status as a seperate item. CP is as useful to me as the MSDN library, so I would have no qualms of paying $100 a year to support CP and help keep it running. I'm sure others feel that way too. Donating would also be a great idea, I'd be quiet happy to ocassionally donate some spare cash to the cause of keeping CodeProject running. Michael CP Blog [
Michael P Butler wrote: As somebody who couldn't write a good article to save his life, that avenue is closed to me. Whilst I can be of a little help in the forums, that isn't going to keep CP running. I evanglise CP as much as I can. First, participating on CP either in articles, forums, or building a sense of community is all valuable to help the growth of CP. Does not matter which parts you fit into, nor if you do anything to support CP. We all can take a serious look at CP's advertisers and see if there is something of interest to us. That will support CP and keep it financially a float. No need for a donation button, they are already there on every page! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
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It has been almost 7 years since I am using internet and I hardly remember wasting time going through the adds. Television adds are blocking adds they block the whole program and one is forced to view (unless one changes the channel), but with web site it is simple 'ignore it and continue with what you are looking for'. As far as site is good I don't mind the adds.
As I replied in another post in this thread, advertisings are not expecting everyone to view their advertisement, they only want it displayed for those times you do view them or for those people that feel the site is worth something and want to view the ads to support the site. If you do not fall in either category, then there still is not loss as there are many that are here to support the site. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
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Michael P Butler wrote: As somebody who couldn't write a good article to save his life, that avenue is closed to me. Whilst I can be of a little help in the forums, that isn't going to keep CP running. I evanglise CP as much as I can. First, participating on CP either in articles, forums, or building a sense of community is all valuable to help the growth of CP. Does not matter which parts you fit into, nor if you do anything to support CP. We all can take a serious look at CP's advertisers and see if there is something of interest to us. That will support CP and keep it financially a float. No need for a donation button, they are already there on every page! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
Rocky Moore wrote: No need for a donation button, they are already there on every page! Whilst I disagree. The point is now mute as we can now purchase a CodeProject supporter status without having to buy VS.NET or MSDN. I have happily payed my $240 to help keep CP up and running. I hope the others who have professed a similiar interest will also do the same. Michael CP Blog [^]
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Hi Rocky, Nice post. I think it isn't the whole picture though. For me, it is unethical to use my article's content to generate targetted advertisement. This isn't an issue of how much time I've put in writing articles, what I've gotten out of them, or whether CP can pay its bills. For me, it is first a question of ethics. I find the google ads unethical and offensive. If we could approach the problem of funding CP by looking at ethics first, instead of last (or never), I think we could find better solutions, many of which have already been repeatedly suggested over the years. Marc Microsoft MVP, Visual C# MyXaml MyXaml Blog
Marc Clifton wrote: For me, it is unethical to use my article's content to generate targetted advertisement. Well, I still have a problem with the idea that there is an ethical breach here by running advertisements. First, they already kind of do earn advertising revenue based on content. Many of the people coming to CP from search engines come here based on the content of the article. At that time, they are exposed to the advertisements on the site because of the content of your article. So, it is already a form of targeted advertisement and these only narrow down the targeting a bit more. Marc Clifton wrote: This isn't an issue of how much time I've put in writing articles, what I've gotten out of them, or whether CP can pay its bills. Why not? You express that you are being ripped off by them making money on your content, when you have already received the benefit from the content. Why not? You have expressed that feel like you are being ripped off by them making money on your content, when you have already received the benefit from the content. What is the difference if you publish in a magazine and they place a specific type of advertisement next to your article that fits closer to the topic, does that justify greater pay for the article? I have never seen in the terms of service on this site that the articles have a modified usage limit that you should be notified or consulted when they want to change their advertising model or that they are limited to only using non targeted advertisements on the articles. When you post, you give them the right to use the article without those limitations. Actually, I would imagine it would be perfectly legal for CP to change to a complete subscription only model. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com