HEAR YE, HEAR YE...
I've resisted putting in contextual ads on this blog for some time, using Google Adsense and or another web advertising network. However, when Six Apart/Typepad introduced it's contextual ads program in partnership with Kanoodle a few days ago as a "new feature", I was tempted to try it. The service is especially targeted towards it's "Pro" subscription customers.
They've done a good job making it easy for users to just "turn on" the feature, using a check box in the control panel. There were no instructions to clip and paste HTML code, or layout challenges to make the ads fit within the design template of the blog. It just worked. That's good.
I'm not sure how the ad technology, provided by Kanoodle, compares with Google or Yahoo!'s ad networks. If anyone has some additional information and/or opinions on this, please let me know.
In the meantime, I hope you don't find the ads on the right obtrusive. I thought I'd try the feature and see how it works in a "real world" setting. Again, if you have some thoughts and/or opinions regarding the inclusion of ads on this site, please let me know. I'd appreciate your input. Thanks.
I think the ads are great. From my perspective, text ads are pretty non-intrusive. It's very simple to ignore them. (Also part of the reason why they won't generate much income). Visual ads can be less appealing, but if the subject matter was relevant enough, I don't think that would be a problem either. I think the problem arises when ads are completely irrelevant. This problem is exacerbated when they are both irrelevant and intrusive.
Posted by: Alex Rowland | Thursday, June 23, 2005 at 12:55 PM