Housekeeping
So, dear readers, my bio has been updated, and methinks the Greek has been fixed.
So now my question for you, gentle readers, is would you be offended if I activated AdSense on this blog? I can apparently customize these to make sure they're not too offensive. However, I am a poor college student and am starting to look at any way possible for a bit of revenue. I am not certain, however, if this counts as selling out! So, please let me know!
So now my question for you, gentle readers, is would you be offended if I activated AdSense on this blog? I can apparently customize these to make sure they're not too offensive. However, I am a poor college student and am starting to look at any way possible for a bit of revenue. I am not certain, however, if this counts as selling out! So, please let me know!
posted by Glaukôpis at 2:19 AM
18 Comments:
It's selling out. There are alternatives, you know.
a man without ads on his website,
Chris Weimer
Thoughts on Antiquity
Ancient Mediterranean Cultures
I thought as much. Oh well.
And what other alternatives? Besides getting a job, that is, because I have one of those and unfortunately won't be able to keep it much longer. Eheu.
It's not clear to me that such a shrewd move would be selling out. Consider, allowing advertisements on your blog is a way to generate revenue which will help fund your academically-inclined ways; presumably, you will have a large audience if you work hard and generate a quality product. Similarly, you can work hard in order to get a good school to admit you and pay at least some of your tuition (i.e. help fund your academically-inclined ways); presumably, if you work hard and produce a quality product, this benefits the school by increasing its reputation and drawing in more customers. Nevertheless, accepting scholarships as a student (and research grants as a professor) does not count as selling out, though there are similarities between such acceptance and on-blog advertising.
Can we have a definition of "selling out" and its relevance, please? Last I heard, the concept had no validity unless it actually changed what you were able to say and produce, and I utterly fail to see how some randomized Google text ads will do that. (Mainly because, well, they won't.)
I meant the more general distaste of associating myself with commercial stuff.
Although, the more I think about it, the more I'm filled with that distaste (again), so this may be a moot point.
Oh, for God's sake. If someone thinks you're "selling out" because you put ads on a site that *you* spend your valuable time on trying to make it a decent and readable resource, maybe that person should pay you $5 or $10 or $20 a month for the privilege of reading an ad-free blog. Care to chip in to underwrite her bills? And who exactly are you selling out *to* The big bad establishment guys at Google? The people who pay Google to put ads up that are contextually relevant and thus likely helpful to readers out there? The web surfers who view the ads and click on them because they *are* actually relevant to what they're looking for? This is a ridiculous discussion. It's your blog: don't ask for permission; put the ads up if you want to. Anybody who's offended should get a life or send you a check. I'm pleased to have Google ads at my sites and I even make some money off of them. Why shouldn't you likewise make some money out of all your work?
What Debra said! What Debra said! Of course you're entitled to make some money out of this if you can. And it's NOT 'selling out' - you're participating in the economy.
I think there is no harm in google text ads. I hate ads on websites but don't mind google boxes. They are static and discreet, easy to tune out.
I have a gmail email account which I love, but it comes with text ads down the side. So if you write to someone about table tennis you get a little set of ads for table tennis tables. Quite sweet, and even possibly useful.
I should say that I really do hate flashing rubbish ads. I work for a reputable, world class scientific journal. A year or two ago someone in the ad department did a deal so that now our site is covered by flashing roll-over ads for credit cards, phones etc-- nothing to do with our content, which is scientific research. I hate this so much that I no longer visit the homepage of my own journal, I get it through rss or go there when I need to look something up and had no choice. I used to have the journal homepage set as my homepage and feel proud when I saw it every day. No longer.
So when I say that I think google text ads are fine on your blog (or anyone's) you know that I am coming from an anti-ad perspective.
Also, I feel very strongly that one's blog is one's own domain of personal expression, one place in the world where you can do what you want without anyone telling you what to do. There are very few, if any, places like that. So I think you should just go ahead and do what you want, whatever anyone says about it.
It isn't selling out, as someone mentioned, since the presence of the ads doesn't obligate you to change your editorial. I feel like, from what I've seen, that the ads do make the blog somewhat less readable, which has been part of my concern. My other concern is that I couldn't control who /what was being advertized. Since, in theory, the ads are based on what is in the blog, I can't imagine I would get anything for say, the fur, toxic waste, and racist slogan emporium, but it does concern me. Plus, you know, I don't get enough readers to make it worth the ads anyway. ;-)
Thanks to ALL of you for your comments. Methinks I shall start experimenting tomorrow and make sure I can customize it as much as I want. If it starts to get annoying (and methinks it'll annoy me probably before it annoys anyone else, because I'm a bit picky about the way this thing looks!), I may take them out. But anyway, I think a little experimentation is in order!
Thanks again!
Although, I really can't think of anyone who would actually pay me money to read me at the moment, but it's a nice goal. ;-)
Sorry Glau for not replying earlier. My alternative is selling books through Amazon, but it never hurts to have a real job too!
best,
Chris
PS - thanks for the link!
Oh, and of course feel free to put Google ads on your site. But please no pop ups or anything overt. It is your blog and all, and we'll keep reading it, but have some decency!
best and warmest regards, still without ads,
Chris
Definitely no pop ups. If I can't control at least *that* much, the ads will be *gone*. Promise!
Hmm, books through Amazon. I'll have to look into that too. Thanks!
Pop-ups, I agree, are annoying and to be avoided (and that's *not* what Google does, anyway). Definitely get an Amazon associates account: it can't hurt.
My own experience was that I had to take them off most of my site. The bulk of relevant advertisers were people selling artefacts with no provenance. I blocked these, but you can only block them when you can see them. I found readers outside the UK were seeing different adverts and I wasn't happy with that. Sometimes the problem is ironic and your regular readers will know if something odd appears, it's not by your design.
The idea that a Classics blog shouldn't have adverts on it does seem close to the stereotype that Classics is for people with private incomes. It also clashes with many departments which are happy to name chairs for professorships for a sufficient sum of money. Perhaps they're not adverts but microendownments? :)
Hmmm, I guess I'll have a chance to experiment over the pond also. I'm a bit vexed that I can't actually customize until they approve me, but I figure I won't actually know if I can live with it until I try it.
The Amazon option, however, makes me very happy. I do enough Amazon advertising that they probably should pay me commission of some sort. ;-)
This is of course your decision and you don't need permission from anybody.
However, a small warning. Some time ago, I had to remove my Google ads after I found out that some of them were about selling property on Northern Cyprus (which is illegal!). The irony was that at that time I had posted a petition against illegal excavations on the northern part of the island. You can find the whole story at a post over samarkeolog: http://samarkeolog.blogspot.com/2006/04/mediterranean-archaeology-northern.html
Yeah, I did hear about that! I'm going to be keeping a close eye on it, but at the moment, the only ads it seems to want to put up are blog ads.
Thanks much for the warning!
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