The question is: for a site that is acquiring 3/4 of a million new users A DAY, is this the kind of ads they want associated with the brand?

How long before we all migrate elsewhere? Maybe not, but maybe. Do you think McDonalds wants to see Mafia ads alongside their pages? I’m guessing not.

Call this a rant, OR call this something to think about: in the future, will we want to join open communities where this is what we get?

I think Groupon is clever in its simplicity and elegant in its design. Basically, a company puts up an offer that only triggers if enough people take the deal.

In the screen grab I took, the deal is for people to attend a spa, and 25 people had to buy at the offered rate of $65 USD. 67 people (at the time of this writing) took the deal, which, if you think about it means that the spa books over $4300 in business for this one promotion. Not bad, eh?

I think there’s some there there, as the kids say.

What say you?

Here’s the thing, Facebook. You KNOW what I like. You KNOW who I connect with. You KNOW how old I am, whether I’m married, what I’ve liked or favorited, or joined. You know TONS about me, that I’ve freely volunteered. But you don’t listen.

Sadly, it reminds me of this video:

You COULD do so much for me, Facebook. Just try?

Call me snobby, but an ugly blinking/flashing credit rating ad on the New York Times website is a horrible mix of brand value, don’t you agree?

Whatever Google Adsense felt like showing you above my posts via RSS:

Hand-picked stuff I think you might like from Amazon:

AdSense paid me $50. Amazon paid me under $20. One took no work. The other was me trying to find what mattered to people I care about.

As I explore the different ways people make money from the web, it’s interesting to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m on the advisory board of Izea for the same reason. I want to better understand this. I follow Angel Djambazov’s work on Revenews for the same reason. I learn from smart people like Jim Kukral, Darren Rowse, and by going to shows like the Affiliate Summit.

But that result above merits noting. Not that one should festoon their site with ads. There are lots of ways to make money. I’m learning about them a bit at a time, to share with you, so that I have more to give to interesting causes (like buying some bricks), and so that I know how others are using the web. So, what does this mean for it all? How will ads be more relevant, less relevant?

And how does this affect the way companies look at the online space in general?

What do you think?

I’ve been experimenting with ads in the RSS feed, and also inserting ad units in older posts found here on my site. There are three reasons:

1.) I can’t write about my thought on ads and affiliate marketing if I don’t know first-hand about it.
2.) I’m fascinated with the game of ads: who clicks, how many, why?
3.) I’m using ad loot to fund attendance of conferences that don’t have business value to CrossTech. (With as many shows as I attend, this is adding up.)

Sometimes, I shift the ads to the top of the feed. When I do, I get 5X more clicks. When I shift them back down, the number goes down drastically. (By the way, the best day ever on ads netted me $2.56, so we’re not talking retirement money, kids).

In a follow-up post to this, I’ll explain to you my entire thought process and theories on monetizing for bloggers. I had several more paragraphs to this post, but it seems to be more than one tack, and I’d like to separate the two.

So, I have ads in my RSS feed and within posts on weeks-old posts as a means to test out advertising (and to make conference-attending loot). I’m sorry if it bothers some of you. If you raise a whole hoot and fuss, I’ll consider moving them down again. But in the mean time, keep enjoying all the schtuff BELOW the ads. It’s there for you.

Here’s the premise that I believe Shiv’s saying they’re going to try: there’s an ad, but then your “friends” can comment on the ad, or rate it, etc.

First off, I don’t know that this will work. If you post a Ford ad, and I come along and crap all over Ford in the comments for the ad, what will Ford, the site, or the ad platform do next? It would be NICE if we could have both sides of the conversation, but as ballsy as I want companies to be, I can’t see anyone taking that bet.

Second, it’s kind of interesting that I might be able to click an ad and get the metaconversation, but I’m curious whether I’d click in the first place, because that’s saying I’ve chosen to endorse the interruption. It continues the premise that people milling about in some online space want the distraction of an ad.

I’m going to think more about what would work for me in the space of “social” ads. My immediate thought is that affiliate marketing is kind of like that. But I have to consider it a bit more.

What do you think about all this?

Photo credit, Montrasio International

Was this a random fluke error? I dunno. I asked Micah Baldwin about it and he said that it’s always been there. I don’t think so. It’s not there now, either. You don’t see something like that on my sidebar, do you?

So did they? Not sure. But if so, bye wijit. I didn’t opt into advertising.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lijit has some tricks up its sleeve for bloggers

Image via Wikipedia

I got this ad on my Facebook page today. Technically, they have a few things right: I just broke my laptop a little. I love Macs. I *could* use a new Mac. But I know it’s going to be a really stupid marketing bait and switch (I’m copping from David Meerman Scott because I saw him yesterday, and he shared his disdain for bait and switch online marketing).

But really, I’m asking YOU. Does this work?