A New Way To Generate Advertising Revenues - AdFusion
Yesterday, I came across a website called AdFusion, which provides an interesting way for website publishers to generate advertising revenues. I say "interesting" because I'm not entirely sure I support this idea. At least, I haven't warmed up to it just yet.
AdFusion supplies actual article content in a number of categories. The content is written by "professional editors", with hyperlinks to advertisers embedded right in the articles. Whenever a site visitor clicks on one of these "content links" (my term, not theirs), the site publisher earns revenue.
What concerns me about this idea is not that dozens of publishers might potentially have the exact same content. Rather, what's the legitimacy of such a method? Doesn't this almost seem like the text equivalent of an infomercial to you, no matter how well-written the content might actually be?
Let me clarify my viewpoint. Back in the mid-90s, I published a "fringe culture" monthly magazine called Chaos Review. The music labels loved us because we published an abundance of music reviews. At some point in the life of the magazine, I started getting a few requests to publish interviews (my own) with bands for a specific issue in return for advertising. I then made it a rule that if I was going to publish a major profile or interview with a band, I wouldn't accept advertising for that band in the same issue. The labels were fine with that, and I got to maintain some editorial integrity.
On the other hand, there are well written blogs like Woot, which are specifically designed to sell a particular product. Where's the line drawn? Woot.com is more like the blog version of a travelling salesman. My point is that I don't feel right about publishing content designed specifically to generate advertising clicks, which is different than if I am directly selling something myself. I'm not saying that it's wrong or that no one else should not do it.
I mean, it's true that I am pretending to be a professional blogger, and that my blogs are published with the intent of some day turning a profit. But my content is still written to be informative, not solely to generate advertising clicks for my own ad network. For my blogs, the advertising is hopefully selected as a supplement to the content, to help visitors who are looking for info on something specific. But merging content and advertising together? Not for me.
Links: AdFusion, Woot.
(c) Copyright: 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/
AdFusion supplies actual article content in a number of categories. The content is written by "professional editors", with hyperlinks to advertisers embedded right in the articles. Whenever a site visitor clicks on one of these "content links" (my term, not theirs), the site publisher earns revenue.
What concerns me about this idea is not that dozens of publishers might potentially have the exact same content. Rather, what's the legitimacy of such a method? Doesn't this almost seem like the text equivalent of an infomercial to you, no matter how well-written the content might actually be?
Let me clarify my viewpoint. Back in the mid-90s, I published a "fringe culture" monthly magazine called Chaos Review. The music labels loved us because we published an abundance of music reviews. At some point in the life of the magazine, I started getting a few requests to publish interviews (my own) with bands for a specific issue in return for advertising. I then made it a rule that if I was going to publish a major profile or interview with a band, I wouldn't accept advertising for that band in the same issue. The labels were fine with that, and I got to maintain some editorial integrity.
On the other hand, there are well written blogs like Woot, which are specifically designed to sell a particular product. Where's the line drawn? Woot.com is more like the blog version of a travelling salesman. My point is that I don't feel right about publishing content designed specifically to generate advertising clicks, which is different than if I am directly selling something myself. I'm not saying that it's wrong or that no one else should not do it.
I mean, it's true that I am pretending to be a professional blogger, and that my blogs are published with the intent of some day turning a profit. But my content is still written to be informative, not solely to generate advertising clicks for my own ad network. For my blogs, the advertising is hopefully selected as a supplement to the content, to help visitors who are looking for info on something specific. But merging content and advertising together? Not for me.
Links: AdFusion, Woot.
(c) Copyright: 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/
