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RSS and Weblog Ads?

Posted by Cliff on from the how-far-is-too-far dept.

Worried About Blipverts asks: "Last week I signed up for an RSS feed from a small site and saw that ads were being inserted into content. I was somewhat surprised, even though I'd heard companies like FeedBurner and BlogMine are providing such services. I'm mixed on the subject ... on one hand, compensating webloggers financially is a powerful way to demonstrate the power of weblog syndication and publishing. On the other hand, the deluge of contrived content (spam, weblogs about mortgage refinancing, etc) is sure to follow. My question is: Are you in favor of ads inside RSS? If not, will you unsubscribe from your feeds that use them?" While it's only fair for sites to seek some form of income for various reasons, what behavior would you consider "going too far" when it comes to advertisements?

3 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. depends on the feed by beegle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it depends on the RSS feed.

    If the feed provides full article text, I think ads are reasonable. With full articles, I have absolutely no reason to visit the site, so I'm eating bandwidth and giving nothing in return.

    If, on the other hand, the RSS feed just has headlines, I think that ads are too much. With a headline-only feed, EVERY message is ALREADY an ad for the full article on the web site, so putting even more ads in is just excessive.

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  2. And thus another arms race begins by finkployd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So we start again. Next come the RSS readers that do not display the ads, then come the ads that try to get around this, etc.

    What people always fail to understand is that RSS and the Web are pull technologies. My browser requests what I tell it to and displays what I want to see. If I configure it to not request images that I do not want to see, or to not pop up windows when javascript requests this, that is my business. This is not "push" where your server tells my browser what to display, my browser asks your server for specific files and if you return them to me, I am free to interpret (render) them any way I want.

    Please plan your business models accordingly. If you refuse to accept this archetecture, consider delivering content on a different medium.

    Finkployd

  3. I don't see this becoming too successful, but... by Jerf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Remember that RSS is even more "pull" than a web page. You might casually follow a link from a Slashdot story or something and end up at a site with a lot of ads, but you won't casually subscribe to an RSS feed. So, you're not going to have to worry much about "RSS spam" in the general case.

    I have no ethical problems with ads in RSS feeds. But from a user experience point-of-view, I have a hard time imagining that I would stick with an RSS feed with anything remotely resembling obtrusive ads. I might tolerate a single Google-text-ad type ad on an excellent full-text feed, but much more than that and good-bye. (Including a non-"excellent" feed; merely "good" and I'll likely just unsubscribe.)

    You can slap an ad on a webpage, but you can't just slap one on an RSS feed. I just can't see this becoming a problem, and anyone that tries to make it one will probably end up self-destructing.