Looks like the inevitable intrusion of advertising into RSS feeds just gained a major player, as Google’s Adsense for Feeds program has just been announced.
On the one hand, I can kind of see where quite a few people might be happy about this. As more and more people read their news through RSS feeds, fewer people are as likely to visit a website and see their ads, and revenue drops.
At the same time — hey, that’s one of the things I like about RSS feeds. While I’ve not yet unsubscribed from a feed because it started carrying advertising, it is a little bit annoying. Not very, at this stage, as so far all the ads are at the tail end of each post and can easily be ignored, but I’d still be happier without ads.
So, while I do use Google’s AdSense program on my site (as unobtrusively as possible while still allowing for the occasional check to hit my mailbox), I’ll not be dropping ads into any of my RSS feeds. The way I figure it, the miniscule amount of extra revenue it might generate isn’t at all offset by the annoyance it could cause my readers (and since the ads annoy me, I’ll work on the assumption that they probably annoy others, too).
“Lords of the Rhymes (Kool-Aid Brothers)” by Lords of the Rhymes (2003, 5:03).
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AdSense for Feeds
Michael doesn’t think this is such a great thing and I tend to agree with him. On one hand being able to add AdSense to my feeds ensures that people who only read my site using my feeds are exposed to ads and that theoretically increases the chance of…
Yahoo publisher’s guide to RSS and Google Adsense tips
Sembra che anche Yahoo sia molto interessata ai nostri RSS e come sta facendo Google con il suo nuovo servizio di Adsense via RSS (ancora in beta sperimentale non tutti possono usarlo), anche il concorrente Yahoo si sta dando da fare. E’ molto in…
Feed types
Looking at the Google AdSense for Feeds announcement, Scoble takes a moment to rank the various basic types of feeds that can be produced now. Dead-on, I’d say.
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I don’t know anyone accepted into the AdSense for Feeds program. It’s still in Beta and I’ve been informed they aren’t accepting applications. Dave