16 Nov 2004 | Jamie said...

Jason, this is great. It will be interesting to see what will happen to RSS as a commercial medium. I wonder how many newsfeeds out there lead to customer conversions....

16 Nov 2004 | Tired of Ads said...

I suppose this was inevitable, though I NEVER thought it would be an organization as well respected as yours.

With everything in America transforming into advertising, I find myself (unlike your first commenter) very UNinterested in where this will take RSS.

Unsubscribed.

16 Nov 2004 | Keith said...

It was just a matter of time eh? As a content provider I'm all for it, as a user, it doesn't seem to be all that intrusive and to me the ability to serve ads in your RSS might push more people to full text feeds.

I'm sure there will be many folks who aren't going to like this...it'll be interesting to see how it moves forward.

16 Nov 2004 | DaleV said...

Thumbs down. Next up? Ads in Basecamp!

16 Nov 2004 | JF said...

I don't see why people are so ad averse. Just ignore them if you don't like them. They're every 3 posts and they're clearly marked at the bottom of the post. There's nothing tricky, no weaving of ads into content, no confusion about what's an ad and what's content. etc.

Bottom line: People put a lot of time into their blogs and I don't see a problem with them being compensated for their time. I also don't see why RSS should be "immune" to revenue generation. RSS is simply content and ads simply support content.

16 Nov 2004 | Thomas Baekdal said...

Well, it has no effect anyway. The latest version of Outlook does not show them by default...

16 Nov 2004 | JF said...

Thumbs down. Next up? Ads in Basecamp!

Oh come on, that's not fair! No ads in Basecamp. It's a paid service.

16 Nov 2004 | JF said...

Plus, there can't be ads in Basecamp -- it's password protected. Google/Overture can't get to your pages.

16 Nov 2004 | wurmi said...

you begin with "I don't see why people are so ad averse" and then you don't tell anything good about them, you just explain that they can easily "avoided" ;)

the only thing you mention is money - which certainly doesn't really attract the once that are ad averse.

16 Nov 2004 | Carl said...

Yeah, what is it with people who are so opposed to ads? Do you not read newspapers? Magazines? They are slammed with ads. Do you complain about those? Do you stop reading those? Why should blogs and RSS feeds (which are just different ways of reading blogs) be special ad-free content vehicles?

16 Nov 2004 | JF said...

the only thing you mention is money - which certainly doesn't really attract the once that are ad averse.

Revenue allows people to continue writing their blogs. Writing -- especially good writing -- takes time, energy, and effort and time, energy, and effort costs money. Ads allow content providers to receive compensation for their time. How do you think magazines and newspapers stay afloat? Ads. Ads allow them to write their articles, take their pictures, pay their journalists, and bring you the news and opinions you take for granted.

So, ads (which are just revenue sources) do benefit everyone by keeping content sources alive and well.

16 Nov 2004 | wurmi said...

most people don't hate ads, the just ignore them.

16 Nov 2004 | Jamie said...

If small text ads help DIY publishers break even to maintain delivering the content that people want to keep reading then they are a good thing. Plus it is being served via RSS. And that is just plain cool from a technology perspective.

16 Nov 2004 | Jeremy C. Wright said...

Two things. First, the ads are VERY well integrated. They don't annoy me at all (unlike some people's Amazon ads, which have caused me to unsubscribe).

Second... When reading this post there were a dozen others. All of which had the ads in the RSS feed :|

16 Nov 2004 | cpalmieri said...

Agreed that there is no reason RSS should be "immune" to ads, though use of the word "immune" itself, sort of implies something about advertising doesn't it?

Noise is noise, and even ignoring it takes a small bit of cognitive effort, but in perspective, relatively unintrusive and an effort I think most SvN readers will happily make.

16 Nov 2004 | Michael said...

Having just gotten on the RSS bandwagon in the last couple months, I quickly realized it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a way to make feeds economically viable. Why would you expect an independent content producer like SvN, much less the Washington Post or NY Times, to give away content for free and unbranded? Why would you expect to get the content for free?

None of us may like the ads, but I don't resent you guys one bit for doing it.

FYI: I'm using Sage extension with Firefox, and the ads are showing up in every post, and scaled down and unreadable.

Also, if there is 1 ad every 3rd post and 15 posts in a feed that means there are 5 ads. There are only two "ads" on this page. I think 2-3 ads in a feed might be less a lot less offensive.

16 Nov 2004 | Jonathan Snook said...

Problem is, the size of content to size of ad ratio is almost 1:1 on SvN. Maybe if there was more indepth content, it'd be worth suffering through the ads. Kieth's Asterisk, for example, could handle the ads -- even on every article -- because of the depth of the articles and the quality of the writing.

Basecamp is a great program but SvN doesn't offer much over product announcements and the usual blog banter.

I read magazines and newspapers and accept the advertising that they push because I get (hopefully) a wealth of content in one place.

I've decided to unsubscribe too. I'll rely on del.icio.us and other blogs to highlight any interesting news that might popup on SvN from now on.

16 Nov 2004 | Josh S said...

Alright, I get to see more ads! I love ads! That's why I block them with Adblock.

The reason I like RSS is I can read something without all the webpage garbage like text ads, blinking banner ads, and everything else that I don't want to look at while I'm reading something.

I wonder if NetNewsWire will get an ad-blocking plugin...

16 Nov 2004 | Paul Nicholls said...

Heh, every third post? I'm using Bloglines and they're in every post.

I'm interested in seeing if this works though.

16 Nov 2004 | patrick h. lauke said...

i find it ironic in light of this site's title - signal vs noise / real posts vs adverts ?

16 Nov 2004 | Joe said...

Carl said...Yeah, what is it with people who are so opposed to ads? Do you not read newspapers? Magazines? They are slammed with ads. Do you complain about those? Do you stop reading those?

Answer: Yes, I do...and I haven't watched network or cable TV in about 15 years, either - it's amazing how much quality time I now have with my family and friends, books, music, you name it-and I don't have to "screen out" the ads that you yourself say are slammed with ads!

Jamie said...Plus it is being served via RSS. And that is just plain cool from a technology perspective.

Answer: Daisy cutters are cool from a technology perspective...doesn't mean you should use them. Find a problem FIRST, then a solution...not the other way around!

16 Nov 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

I don't care that there are ads in the feeds. They are easy to avoid, even though my eye gets drawn there with every caffinated twitch.

My question is, why every 3rd ad? Why not each one?

16 Nov 2004 | Andy said...

I think there are two things on this:

- part of the growth of rss is that helped people bypass all the 'stuff' (including ads) and get to the content on websites, so it's possible to see why some might be a little (but not a lot) annoyed

- in the real world, sites like SvN have to pay the bills

On balance, I'd rather keep SvN as it is (free) and know where the ads are. It's a great site and my day would be considerably poorer without it. If that means a couple of ads, so be it. Jason, really interested how it works out - do keep us updated.

16 Nov 2004 | Jonathan Snook said...

For those using bloglines, I just wanted to mention that it shows all the "updated" posts which are all the ones with ads in them but it should still be every third post (it's just the other ones are already set to 'read'.

16 Nov 2004 | Jamie said...

On a somewhat-related note: How do you think people find out about services like Baseccamp or Writeboard that 37Signals offers? Through this blog of course (and the RSS feed that the site provides). Not that it's a bad thing because it is probably what this audience is interested in.

But it opens up this debate for the anti-ad folks:
Did you ever wonder if the blog that you read regularly also serves as a venue to advertise worthwhile products and services (e.g. Basecamp and Writeboard and Defensive Design for the Web or other things like Jewelboxing)?

Not that it's bad. But really, how is it different?

16 Nov 2004 | Jonathan Snook said...

Jamie: a blog that mentions a new product or service usually doesn't do so as its regular service (although, this would make for an interesting concept for a blog or rss feed).

Even so, the announcement is usually accompanied by some extra commentary that may be more relevant to the readers of that blog.

Eg: In reading a blog about security, the author may say "Hey, get Firefox, it's more secure than IE.". But if I read a web design blog, the author may say "Hey, get Firefox, you can do some neat png alpha stuff with it."

It's the whole signal vs noise ratio. The odd shout-out on a cool product is a heck of a lot more useful than ads pushed through on every (third) post with no useful filtering. That's the difference.

16 Nov 2004 | MrBlank said...

Will SvN get mad if I put an ad in my comments? I mean, my opinons and comments are worth something too. Aren't they?

www.amazon.com

16 Nov 2004 | Marcus said...

Like Paul mentioned, they're in *every* post in bloglines and they're really annoying as they slow the feed down incredibly. Apart from that they're not targeted... I'm getting ads for mortgages (over and over and over), mp3 players and free cell phones... excactly the type of stuff that detracts from credibility and content.

I can't believe that this site (of the 201 feeds I'm subscribed to) is the first to get ads in its feeds. Blech.

16 Nov 2004 | ramanan said...

At what point would you say there is more noise then signal at this site?

As was mentioned earlier, the adverts attached to your posts are almost as long as the posts themselves. Your RSS feed looks obnoxious in Bloglines -- though that's really just my opinion.

On this page, there are google ads at the top of this page, and two ads for your projects on the side bar. The space ads take up is larger then the space the post takes up. The pictures in the side bar really make those two ads the main attraction on your individual archive pages. Peoples eyes will notice the side bar before the main content on this page I would say. I suppose in some ways that may be the point.

Also, just because adverts are targeted doesn't make them any less annoying.

16 Nov 2004 | Chris S said...

I'd bet money that a lot of the same people who say "I'm insulted by ads" are the same people who shrug and say, "just turn the channel" if you're offended by something on television or the radio.

16 Nov 2004 | Jamie said...

Jonathan Snook said: a blog that mentions a new product or service usually doesn't do so as its regular service (although, this would make for an interesting concept for a blog or rss feed).

Point taken. But also, this blog that we're conversing on is provided by a really great usability/web design company. I love SvN. But maybe there is another reason why it exists except for pure discourse.

16 Nov 2004 | pkmk said...

put ads on every post or none, because this changing content confuses feed readers.

i am strongly against ads in feeds.

16 Nov 2004 | Luke Andrews said...

Most of us dutifully see and/or ignore ads in magazines and newspapers which often exceed the actual "content", and on billboards which grace our roads, and at the movie theatre before the trailers, and during the movies via product placements, and on the bus or subway when there is no where else to look, and every 8 minutes on TV, and every few songs on the radio, and on web sites in text ads, popup windows, flash animated banners and comment spam, and on the sidelines of sports arenas, and emblazoned on athlete's clothing and come-to-think-of-it on a lot of people's clothing in general, and, well, now on RSS feeds.

Anyone tired yet?

It's not the end of the world. It's still disappointing.

These particular RSS ads are not even the intelligent kind like Google's text ads, but the monotonous, useless kind, akin to all the spam that is slowly choking the Internet to death. Great, 37signals, you too are now contributing to that suffocation.

As someone else noted, this blog already serves as a marketing vehicle for its owners' commercial products. And that's okay. The question, however, should not be, "Why is that different from ads?" but rather, if this is already a site with advertising for one company, why should the readers be expected to put up with, or "ignore" advertising for a whole lot of other companies who have nothing to do with this us, the audience?

Thumbs down. :(

16 Nov 2004 | Jamie said...

One last comment... :)

Luke Andrews said: As someone else noted, this blog already serves as a marketing vehicle for its owners' commercial products. And that's okay. The question, however, should not be, "Why is that different from ads?" but rather, if this is already a site with advertising for one company, why should the readers be expected to put up with, or "ignore" advertising for a whole lot of other companies who have nothing to do with this us, the audience?

Theoretically, the technology serving ads--sort of like Google's AdSense--would present only relevant advertising. Unless I'm mistaken, the ads will be targeted to this audience depending on the content of the post whether it be Basecamp-type related stuff or humidifiers. I understand the "thumbs down" sentiment. But I am very interested to see where this takes blogging, RSS, and the web in general. It sucks that advertising has to do it, but let's face it...we live in a capitalist society.

16 Nov 2004 | Chris S said...

The market will decide. If it's profitable, it will remain and grow. If not, it will wither and die. That's the nature of capitalism, and it's better than every alternative.

16 Nov 2004 | David Schontzler said...

Signal vs. Noise?

Thanks for increasing the noise ratio! No thanks, rather. Unsub.

16 Nov 2004 | rog said...

Not so hard to avoid the ads if you use a ad-blocking proxy. The above link is useful. Add something like the following right after the "Contributed adult sites" section and you'll never see the ads

// signal vs. noise is now polluting its rss feeds with ads.
|| (dnsDomainIs(host, "feeds.feedburner.com") &&
shExpMatch(url, "*/~a/*"))

16 Nov 2004 | rog said...

sorry, link didn't show up. try this:
http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/

16 Nov 2004 | Tom T said...

Great...just great.

I can understand the desire to increase or even create a small revenue stream, to help offset the "costs" (in quotes not because I think they are bogus, but because usually with a blog the costs are lovingly paid by the blogger because it's usually a pet cause)...but some of the big reasons why the concept of the blog took off is because it's real people talking (as opposed to scripted people, aka TV), the focus of discussion tends to be hightly specialized, and it's free of the intrusions of most other mediums. Ads are the most aggregious (sp?) of the bunch, but they aren't alone...

When some prominent bloggers began carrying google ads, I was dismayed, but I felt that it was the blogger's right to do so, especially if they customized the google feed towards things that interest them...and therefore would probably interest the audience of that blog.

But to force a user to navigate past advertisements forced upon them in the online version of "TV Guide"--which in many ways is what an RSS feed really ends up being--to me is probably the worst thing you can do.

So I'd say nay. You have a loyal readership; they are willing to put up with ads within the content itself. To push ads in the medium that gets people to your site is a potential turnoff.

16 Nov 2004 | David Schontzler said...

Resubscribed, thanks to AdBlock.

16 Nov 2004 | noah said...

Hate to miss out on the SvN content, but to quote Strong Bad: "DELETED!"

16 Nov 2004 | Marie Carnes said...

What does target mean? What or who are you targeting? If it's me, you missed out by not asking what ads I want to see or what things I'm interested in buying.

As someone who reads in excess of 200 feeds per day (I'm subscribed to over 450, but they don't all update every day), I see past your ads.

I am pro-ad in RSS, however.

There are "products with prices" that are fed to me via my reader. To name a few: A couple Amazon feeds, CheapAssGamer, MoreStuff4Less, and Woot. However, those "ads" were put there by me. A major plus is, I look at them when I'm ready.

P.S. The ads for mortgages have got to go. That is just so much spam.

16 Nov 2004 | Chris Owens said...

16 Nov 2004 | Ed Knittel said...

If the argument for ads in RSS is because they are taking up a large portion of one's bandwidth then there's a very fast way to solve that problem - get rid of RSS. If serving ads is important to SvN then just force everyone to visit your site.

Chris S said:
"The market will decide. If it's profitable, it will remain and grow. If not, it will wither and die. That's the nature of capitalism, and it's better than every alternative."

That's funny because the most popular extension for Firefox is AdBlock. I think the market has already spoken loud and clear concerning their feelings towards ads.

Thank God for AdBlock.

16 Nov 2004 | Chris Owens said...

I have no idea why my previous post didn't show up, so here goes again:

The thing that I find strange (and slightly annoying) is that SvN isn't just any blog by Joe Public... It's a point of contact for a business.

Now I'm not opposed to 37 Signals trying to sell me their products at all... in fact I think SvN is an excellent example of how a blog can work extremely well for a company. What I do find strange is that as well as trying to sell me your products... your ads could end up trying to sell me your competitors products too? Surely 37 Signals don't need the revenue that badly?

Anyway, good luck with this venture.

16 Nov 2004 | Alexander said...

This was just too darn ugly, obtrusive and stupid. Unsubscribed.

16 Nov 2004 | Major said...

Isnt the Blog already an ad for 37signals?

You get people on your website and they maybe buy your book or ask for your services.

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

Frankly I'm a little surprised so many people are so afraid of change. RSS ads are coming people.

We're helping our friends at Feedburner experiment with this new service. We may or may not keep 'em, but we think it's certainly worth a shot. We like to experience things first hand and make up our minds -- this is what we're doing with now with RSS ads. You are free to make up yours as well.

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

Surely 37 Signals don't need the revenue that badly?

No, it's not about us. We're trying this new service (along with some other blogs) so we can provide feedback to the folks at Feedburner. We may or may not keep them in place on SvN after the trial is over.

But, content providers and indie publishers definitely need the money and ads in RSS will be a potential revenue stream. RSS is not sacred.

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

P.S. The ads for mortgages have got to go. That is just so much spam.

The ads are supposed to be automatically targeted to the content. Doesn't look like the targeting is too hot right now, but, as I said in the initial post, it's a pilot program that we're trying out. It's beta. Kinks have to be worked out and we're helping them work them out by providing feedback based on our experience and our reader's opinions.

17 Nov 2004 | Lloyd Dalton said...

It took a while for web browsers to develop ad-blocking techniques. Hopefully newsreaders will evolve more quickly :)

17 Nov 2004 | -b- said...

Damn. How did we get our ads in your RSS?

17 Nov 2004 | Luke said...

It's a sad day when people criticizing the pernicious spread of advertising are accused of being "afraid of change."

We're not afraid of change, we're frustrated by the endless cycle that advertisements spawn:

1. Ads appear in new, original, highly visible spot
2. People notice and ads work
3. People get used to it and start ignoring ads
4. Ads lose effectiveness, move on somewhere and repeat step 1.

JF, you make it sound like you're peddling The Future, and we're all just luddites. We should all just roll over and accept it every time the marketing world comes up with something newly invasive?

17 Nov 2004 | David said...

Looking at your feed in Firefox/Sage, I see an ad for every item, and each ad is totally unreadable unless I increase the font size to the equivalent of 24- or 28- point!...thanks, but I already have a mortgage!!!!! How about some "enlargment pills"? Maybe another college diploma? Might as well go totally spam, don't you think...isn't this why we all hate/hated email?

It's damn arrogant of you to say that ads such as these will become the norm soon...I thought it was the responsibility of "reputable" groups of developers (like you guys, I thought) to maybe gently guide the world away from this s**t.

Are you really so hard up that you'll do ads which, as has been pointed out, might even display your competitors' services alongside your own? You must be getting an awful lot of dough to be giving up your integrity....it's too sad.

No more 37sig feeds for me, thank you.

17 Nov 2004 | A Former Fan said...

WHAT THE FRICKIN ELL?!? I thought you guys were into cleanliness of design. My Bloglines feed of SvN is now FILLED (every post not every 3rd post) with ads for morgage, cellphones, and Dell laptops.

NICE KNOWING YOU GUYS, but I'm gone for good now.

- - A former fan

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

It's damn arrogant of you to say that ads such as these will become the norm soon...I thought it was the responsibility of "reputable" groups of developers (like you guys, I thought) to maybe gently guide the world away from this s**t.

Arrogant? WHAT?! You don't think ads are coming to RSS? Are you serious?

"Reputable groups like us to guide the world away from..." What are you talking about? Independent publishers need to generate revenue. As more and more people shift to RSS feeds, less and less will be visiting web sites (where the ads currently are). Indie publishers will need to generate lost revenue some way and RSS is a very fair way to do that.

This idea that RSS is some sacred format is completely insane. RSS is nothing special. It's just a content delivery format like a web site is a content delivery format. And every content delivery format known to man has advertisements to support the "free" content that is distributed on that format.

You must be getting an awful lot of dough to be giving up your integrity....it's too sad.

Giving up our integrity? WHAT?! Where is this coming from? We toss a few ads in our RSS feed as part of a pilot program and our intregrity is shot? You must not have thought much about us in the first place.

17 Nov 2004 | Randy said...

I find this all so humourous. SvN has Google ads on every blog post already, but they're "on the web" so everyone is cool with that. But, once ads go into the holy RSS feeds then it's all over. 37haters.

Whatever people. Get a life. Anyone who "quits" on someone they admire because that person/group is trying something new wasn't a friend to begin with.

17 Nov 2004 | Randy said...

your ads could end up trying to sell me your competitors products too? Surely 37 Signals don't need the revenue that badly?

I forgot to pick up on this one. Doesn't Progressive Insurance show you quotes from their competitors as well? Progressive is confident that their offering is better than their competition and they'd rather you know your options so you don't have any buyers remorse. Perhaps 37signals has the same level of confidence and isn't worried about competitors ads showing up on their blog.

17 Nov 2004 | Dick Costolo said...

Hi, I want to add several comments. First of all, as JF said, he's helping pilot something right now, so no need to unsubscribe from his feed. Next, it may very well be the case that some feeds are inappropriate for ads, some are appropriate, and some are dependent on the subscriber; having said that, when we started FeedBurner, our thinking was and still is "as content gets syndicated, it will be important in many cases (not all) for the publisher to be compensated as that content is distributed". This is one way of doing that. There are others. If ads are inappropriate here, then it's helpful to let JF know, and we'll pay careful attention to the comments and reactions and we will absolutely adjust our approach accordingly.

17 Nov 2004 | Dick Costolo said...

One last thing, the ads should only be every third post as Jason had selected. Going forward they will be every third post but our framework for the ads mistakenly assigned them every post when this was first set up. Totally our problem, fixed going forward.

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

FYI, I just changed some settings so ads will only be shown on posts longer than 100 words. This should prevent short posts from being overwhelmed by an ad that is "bigger" than the post. Thanks for the feedback.

17 Nov 2004 | Nick Finck said...

Well, that's pretty much the end of an era.

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

Well, that's pretty much the end of an era.

Which era is that?

17 Nov 2004 | Ian said...

I assume he means the end of RSS being bleeding edge. Ads seem to indicate the moving of a technology from uncertainty to maturity and general acceptance. Personally, I think its a step that should be celebrated. It also indicates that something newer is brewing, waiting to be found and I, for one, can't wait to see what it is.

17 Nov 2004 | CraigG said...

I'm with you Ian. I see this as a new opportunity. A blank slate of potential for enterprising folks to come up new ideas for RSS. And you are right, it does marshal in a new era of maturity and that's a great thing. I think the Feedburner guys are already on to something, and not just with ads, but their other stuff (Amazon affiliate auto-links, smart feeds that convert a single feed into multiple formats, etc.)

17 Nov 2004 | Mike said...

Ian, I totally agree, RSS feeds being used not as an anomaly but as something approaching the norm is great. It's the same excitement I feel when newspapers and online media outlets talk about weblogs without having the obligatory nut graph to explain what this fancy new technology is.

17 Nov 2004 | Todd said...

As a faithful reader, I hope you will remove the ads from your RSS feed. Clearly, alot of your faithful readers feel the same way.

I think you should consider the blog an extension of your company and your marketing. The blog allows your customers, prospects, and fans to interact with you and they do so often.

The responses from SvN on this post sound like "This is what I want to do. I want to have ads." Your community wants something different. They participate with your brand daily. I find it odd that they wouldn't be considered in the decision to make such a change.

I am interested to see what you do next...

17 Nov 2004 | ~bc said...

Where as I don't have anything against ads in RSS, I feel they're out of place on SvN feeds. It's a branding thing. I feel that this blog is an extension of your business, and that automated ads hawking cell phones is simply unappropriate on a unrelated business' website.

Additionally, the banner has a strong visual wieght in the feed that the content, and in RSS, where content is (supposed to be) king, that doesn't fit in.

Personal site? Go ahead. I wouldn't do it, but that's me. NY Times' RSS feed? Yahoo!News feed? I'm surprised they're not there already.
Weblogs, Inc. does it, and that's fine. They're a blogging business.

But as has been pointed out... this literally ups the Noise to Signal ratio. Good move on the 100 word+ move, but I just doesn't think ads fit your brand nor your message. I think the same about the Google ads. Sellout? Eh, I'm still debating if you can be a sellout w/ text ads. But I am debating that, and that alone should be some indication of ads effect on your business' image. My 2.

PS- JF - you're sounding quite defensive... you had to know there would be some serious ad-adverse peeps on this blog...

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

PS- JF - you're sounding quite defensive... you had to know there would be some serious ad-adverse peeps on this blog...

Well, our integrity is being called into question. So, yeah, I'm going to be defensive.

Plus, I'm being defensive because I feel like the idea is worth defending. Ads in RSS feeds is a good idea. It may not be a good fit in the end for SvN, but it's a good business idea for many independent publishers.

As I've said before, this is a pilot program. We're giving it a shot. We're experimenting. We're helping our friends over at Feedburner. We want to experience this stuff first hand so we can make informed decisions. And we want to know how it works so we can consider recommending it or not recommending it to clients. That's what this is about -- being informed.

We're discovering things about the targeting (doesn't look too hot right now), and the bugs in the system (the every post/ad bug -- which was kindly fixed already by Feedburner). I'm curious how it will all shake out.

17 Nov 2004 | Dick Costolo said...

the comments in regard to the visual weight of the 'banner' are helpful. It would obviously be easy to create ads with no visual distinction but we have to make them distinct so that there's no appearance of trying to pretend the ad is something written by the author that blends in to the post...so there's a balance between distinction and obtrusiveness (maybe a tightrope) that we need to walk. I think this is a case where steps in either direction cause problems in the near term ("you're trying to make it look like part of the post and that's dishonest" vs "yikes, i can't ignore that visually distracting thing"). Possibly we need to just provide publisher tools to tweak size and style so that they can look however the feed author wants them to look. Noted.

I'll make one last comment. Part of the promise of RSS is not just feed readers but the ability to easily distribute content via machine-to-machine syndication. My feed's items can literally wind up anywhere as this technology becomes more ubiquitous. To the degree that happens and publishers don't have a capacity to monetize their outbound content before it's syndicated, they are left trying to determine where it's being consumed and who's monetizing it on the consumption side and what, if anything, they care to do about that. To the extent they can embed their own reimbursement capabilities in the content on the way out, the former issue is possibly of less concern. Does that mean that all posts and feeds should have ads in them? Of course not. As a couple people here have said, "the market will determine what works and what doesn't" Totally agree. Do we think it's worth checking out where this works and where it doesn't on a trial basis? Yes. Is the answer going to be "Hey, we discovered it works everywhere?" YES! I mean, no. I forgot that the right answer is no. SvN is quite popular and has a vocal readership and we want our approach to take some lumps so that we have a good sense for what we need to tune, tweak, or drastically change. Thanks JF.

17 Nov 2004 | John Gruber said...

I don't understand the venomous nature of some of the comments here. Some of you seem to be taking these ads as a personal insult, and that's simply not connected to reality. And those of you who seem to be the most insulted are in fact insulting Jason and the 37signals team.

Constructive criticism about the specifics of these ads is one thing. (E.g.: I don't understand why they look like text ads, but are in fact images made to look like text ads. Why not just use text? Impression-tracking? They stick out when using an aggregator that supports custom CSS presentation.) But arguing against the entire concept of using RSS as an advertising medium is like trying to catch a train that's already left the station.

17 Nov 2004 | Eric Lunt said...

Thanks for your reasoned response, John. We really are trying to learn as much as we can during this trial period about the best way to offer this capability to publishers. Jason has been an awesome partner throughout this process.

A good question about the ads ... I just posted some of the reasons behind why we use images for ads here: http://www.burningdoor.com/eric/archives/000869.html . I hope that helps.

17 Nov 2004 | Chris Owens said...

I'm curious to know what happens when the news is syndicated onto another site... after all RSS isn't just about newsreaders.

17 Nov 2004 | Michael said...

Oh boy! Ads. I'll make sure to get that RSS feed....NOT!

17 Nov 2004 | Eliot White said...

I can't say I didn't see RSS ads coming, and I'm taken aback at how surprised some of the commenters are. Frankly, of all the people out there who could be testing ads in their feeds, I'm glad 37signals is getting in on the ground floor, because I'm confident that their intention is to make the service better for everyone (content providers, ad distributors, and subscribers). On the other hand, I won't go so far as to request ads in the feeds to which I subscribe. I guess I look at this as what will be, will be. But at least this way, there's an opportunity to end up with something better, especially if FeedBurner takes off in a big way.

Eric, I read your post concerning the reasoning behind using images for ads within the feeds. I don't pretend to be an RSS expert, but from what I read, it seems like a single ad is attached to the entire feed and displayed for certain feed items. You're using an image in order to keep old feed items from showing updates if the ad is changed. Is it possible to attach an individual, and potentially different, ad to each appropriate feed item? That is, each post would have a separate ad that would remain unchanged if a new ad were introduced with a new feed item. You would be attaching ads to the individual feed items rather than the feed itself. I could also see this paving the way for more contextually relevant ads, possibly as text, which has more flexibility from environment to environment than an image.

Even if the above isn't feasible, is moving to text ads a goal for the future, or are you set on images displaying text?

17 Nov 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

Not being one of the " 42 Segway-owning, power-blogging web designers in the world who care about RSS" this won't really bother me one way or another. If I want to read SvN I know where it is.

But it says something about the the industry today that one of the original 'clean design' firms is "excited to be involved in this". That's not having a go at 37sigs - which is a business after all - it's just I see an indication that maybe certain cold commercial realities are changing the usability of the web.

17 Nov 2004 | another pb said...

Umm, people, 37 said it's a pilot program, an experiment. Cut them some slack. Sheesh. I think it's pretty cool that they're involved in this and hopefully they'll be able to help make it better.

17 Nov 2004 | Joe said...

JF, from your very first comment, you sound as though you've already made up your mind on this "experiment", sort of like a scientist deciding what he thinks ought to be found, then devising an experiment to find it. I think that's maybe why some here find your responses defensive.

If an indie publisher, blogger, Fortune 100, whatever wants to advertise in its RSS that's fine - advertise your services, if you're a rare book seller then advertise your newest find, have a personal blog and want to suggest a cool CD then advertise it (maybe a few pennies from a sale will help you pay for your time). What hacks off many folks is the constant bombardment in our culture of ads that have no context, they're just plain insulting-e.g., if I need a mortgage, am I really going to settle on a financial firm I find through a RSS ad, especially if I've never heard of it? This makes the mortgage co. look stupid, the RSS producer look stupid, and all because you're treating your readers as if they're stupid.

Finally, if this is a true experiment, then you should be thanking those of us who are none too happy with these ads. A quick glance through all these many comments will show you that you've got a solid percentage of readers who don't like this, and that should be a useful piece of information for anyone who is running an objective experiment. We used to talk about coding for NN4, because we didn't want to lose 5% of the audience - well, if you've ticked off, say, 20% of the audience with ads I would hope (speaking objectively) that would be a much more worrisome situation to contend with...regardless of what you, JF, personally believe to be "right" or "inevitable".

Your readers are being honest with you - perhaps we're a bit brutal, but (again, as an experiment) you can see just how deep a nerve you've hit. Don't assume that we who disagree with you are "afraid of change" - maybe we're just afraid of the wrong change, maybe we just have a different view of what would make the world (both real and cyber) better.

17 Nov 2004 | JF said...

What hacks off many folks is the constant bombardment in our culture of ads that have no context, they're just plain insulting

We don't choose the ads, they are automatically placed and they are supposed to be matched by keywords in the posts. Clearly the matching isn't so hot right now. That's why this is a work in progress. And we are providing this feedback to our friends at Feedburner.

Further, the RSS ads have been up for less than 24 hours. I'm not going to pull something based on some bad feedback when we don't even have a few solid days or weeks behind us. Knee-jerk reactions, good or bad, aren't the type of reactions to base action on. Let's let this play out a little and then we'll see what happens.

And, yes, ads in RSS are inevitable. I stand by that. There is advertising on every single content delivery vehicle and RSS is no more or less special than paper, TV, radio, web, etc.

17 Nov 2004 | wayne said...

37 feedback,

Using latest Firefox 1.0 (which has sage built in) I'm not seeing tha ads at all in the RSS bookmark after subscribing. Same issue on another computer here. Bug?

17 Nov 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

I think it's worth stepping back and looking at the original purpose of RSS.

RSS was designed as a way for people to keep on top of new content posted to the sites that they visit regularly. RSS aggregators/readers created a one-stop-shop where you could quickly glance through headlines or skim through new posts on a large number of sites, saving you the trouble of visiting each site just to see if anything new had been posted.

I don't think there was ever a "rule," spoken or unspoken, that RSS feeds would be free of ads. It just happened that way: people syndicated their posts, or summaries of their posts, and that was that. Eventually it dawned on users that RSS feeds were a largely ad-free zone, and RSS advocates saw that people might prefer subscribing to an RSS feed than to an e-mail list because e-mail is so contaminated by spam.

At the same time, people who were getting a bit of revenue from Google ads on their sites worried that this revenue would be hurt by RSS feeds, because users would never visit their site and click on the ads. So in that sense, advertising on RSS feeds was inevitable.

I remember seeing ads in a few RSS feeds at least a year ago, it's not really new although it's been pretty slow to catch on. I think the reaction you're seeing now echoes the initial opposition to advertising on the web and e-mail. The Internet used to be one of the few "places" you could go to get ad-free content, it was like public television or public radio. RSS was like that too in the beginning, I think many people felt like RSS was the last refuge, the last place where you could get content without advertising. So it's understandable that many people would be angry about ads in RSS feeds, although people will undoubtedly get used to it.

17 Nov 2004 | Lee Cockrell said...

Unsubscribing. The google ads on the webpage were easily ignored. But now the bloglines summaries each have ads? No thanks. This used to be a place I could occasionally read something interesting, but no longer. Is fewer readers but more money worth it?

Your arguments for RSS ads are much like the ones around 1999/2000 for popup ads. "Just ignore them if you don't like them." Does anybody NOT use a popup blocker these days?

17 Nov 2004 | rog said...

There must have been some weird convergence yesterday. First SVN starts rolling ads into their RSS feed, then TomTomorrow.com announces that bootleg RSS feeds of his site are 'stealing' from him, thereafter putting up his own reduced content RSS feed and warning people not to use the bootleg feeds. Did hosting prices go up in November?

17 Nov 2004 | ChrisR said...

CHILL OUT PEOPLE! They are trying something new. Give them a chance to see how it works out. 37 has been pretty cool for years, give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. I'm sure they are fans of ugly ads either, but it's part of the testing process. Provide constructive criticism, not personal attacks on 37's integrity. Sheesh, you people are high strung!

17 Nov 2004 | rog said...

By tomtomorrow.com I mean, of course, thismodernworld.com. Sorry for the popup site.

17 Nov 2004 | ChrisR said...

I meant "aren't fans" not "are fans"

17 Nov 2004 | Josh Williams said...

Personally, I don't really care whether or not the ads are there, but here's some feedback you can throw to the Feedburner folks...

I use NetNewsWire, and often when I'm reading feeds, I have them in a quite narrow (under 300px wide) window pane. At least encourage Feedburner to style the ads liquidly. Is that a word?

Weblogs, Inc. does this with their RSS ads, and I'm much more inclined to view theirs because it truly appears like text, and not a banner that runs out the side of my window forching me to sidescroll if I actually did want to see what the ad was for. They are extremely clunky right now.

If you want a screenshot, let me know.

17 Nov 2004 | Jose Daniel said...

I think it's stupid. That's it.

17 Nov 2004 | Jason Hummel said...

Yeah, what is it with people who are so opposed to ads?

I encourage everyone to watch the Frontline episodes " The Merchants of Cool" and the followup, " The Persuaders" While outside the scope of RSS ads, I do think you all will find an answer to the question above.

Ads have become so pervasive they're now intertwined within our culture. We're no longer creating our own culture, instead we're regurgitating the package that was presented to us through marketing. Our actions then feed the marketing machine - agencies catch onto our actions as the next big thing and try to sell us back to us twofold. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

For the record, I work for an agency and have an emphasis in advertising. I'm not against ads... I do feel some remorse when they enter new areas though. It doesn't seem there is anything left that is uniquely ours to enjoy

17 Nov 2004 | friends said...

friends are still ours to enjoy, dear jason. friends.

17 Nov 2004 | One of several Steves said...

One of the things that's I've found alternately amusing and irritating about the online world is the idea that content should be free. It's not. Ever. In any medium. You pay for a newspaper or a magazine. You get ads on radio or TV, or now in the movies. Even on NPR and PBS, you sit through "This program made possible by a grant from Big Huge Corporation because they want to look friendly and charitable" announcements all the time.

Why should online content be any different? Few people are so altruistic as to not want to at least recover some of their costs in creating and distributing content that others find interesting. I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to do that. I can always ignore the ads they send. I'm quite successful at it already, as are most people who even know what RSS is, let alone how to use it.

Those expecting to receive free content for eternity are going to find themselves running out of content sooner rather than later.

18 Nov 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

"friends are still ours to enjoy, dear jason. friends. "

Well I'm going to start carrying advertising when I go out. Sandwich board on my back, advertising mortgages or somesuch, every third visit to the pub. Conversation takes time, and time is money! And I demand to be paid for my time!

;)

18 Nov 2004 | Dick Costolo said...

Initial style changes based on early feedback here: got rid of the image "shading", made the gifs transparent so they don't pop on non-white backgrounds, removed the "feed ads by feedburner" from the broken border and just put "sponsored listings" inside the border. the ads also now have an adaptive height and less a little less border chrome. Thanks for the NNW feedback from one of a handful of steves - will look at that. Simultaneously working on a few things that might help more quickly process SvN context and deliver more relevant links. Back to work.

18 Nov 2004 | dwalker said...

I don't have a problem with Ads in RSS, but I know that like all forms of marketing somebody will take it to a ludicrous level until it becomes the norm.

18 Nov 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Timely article in Wired:

http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,65745,00.html

18 Nov 2004 | Paul said...

RSS is a distirubtion method, not a content system. Place ads in the content itself, but leave the distirbution method alone. This is similar to the fact that Tivo wants to add some ads while you are fast-forwarding through the TV ads. Again, leave the distribution channel alone and put the ads in the content.

Also, just as technology helps distribute content more effectively, thus technology will be used to remove the ads from feeds. It won't just be a technical stripper (for which you will be cut-off from the feed source), but an ingenious way to aggregate RSS feeds as "re-posts" that point to the same content, but without the RSS feed ads.

We have already begun to work on this on Capango to act as another value-add service to our members. The initial testing of this has worked well. So we say - bring on the RSS feed ads! It will only help us to build our member base and remind people that you can still get access to decent content without being bludgeoned with marketing.

18 Nov 2004 | Manda said...

For me it's not the ads so much as the tone of the announcement. To most people ads are just a necessary evil. It's rather offensive to see someone so excited about the idea of forcing them on people.

18 Nov 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Jason, it's your blog, do what you want.

Do people not understand the idea of an "Off Button"??

18 Nov 2004 | Carl said...

It will only help us to build our member base and remind people that you can still get access to decent content without being bludgeoned with marketing.

You do understand that other people will then be subsidizing your content appetite? You are riding on other people's backs. If you're cool with then then go for it, but realize that *someone* is paying for the stuff you are "getting" for free.

18 Nov 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

"You do understand that other people will then be subsidizing your content appetite? You are riding on other people's backs. If you're cool with then then go for it, but realize that *someone* is paying for the stuff you are "getting" for free."

Does that apply to people who use, for example, pop-up killers too?

18 Nov 2004 | Paul said...

Carl posted: but realize that *someone* is paying for the stuff you are "getting" for free.

I think you missed the point of my comment: the member will still see the RSS feed's item (as they do today), sans any items that are "ads" or any "ads" that are implanted in the item.

The concept of RSS is to let people know that there is information available that may be of interest to them. That's all it should be used for, not to give you the full content as some now do. That is the sitatuion where the publisher feels they need to be "compensated".

But if we go back to having RSS being the indicator that there is new informaton of interest to you, with a short description "teaser", then the person will be able to parse through the information quickly and read only the items they are truly interested in at that point.

When the person clicks on the link to read the full post, they are brought to the blog, web site, etc., which is where the ads and "compensation" to the publisher should exist.

So - publish content, use RSS so that people will know there is something new of interest, and do a great job creating teaser elements to get the person to visit - and everyone will be happy. In that scenario, there is no need for ads in the RSS feed.

18 Nov 2004 | jonah said...

One of the things that's I've found alternately amusing and irritating about the online world is the idea that content should be free. It's not. Ever. In any medium.

The same goes for food. It's not free, ever. Even if you grow your own vegetables. When I have people over for dinner though, I don't charge them. I don't set up posters in my dining room promoting the latest movie release. Sometimes I make really good dinners, complete with a couple bottles of wine, and it probably costs a few times more than my monthly webhost bill. I don't sit my friends down and explain to them that:

"As much as I like to cook and have you over, you know, this food costs money and it took time to prepare it. Not only that, but I pay rent on this apartment and you're enjoying the space. I had to pay for electricity and gas to run my kitchen, not to mention the transportation costs to get to and from the market. So c'mon buddy, why shouldn't I be able to recoup my costs by telling you about these wonderful Amway products...."

I think that it is great when people can take advatage of the ridiculously low costs of web publishing to share their writing. I think it can come off as crass when people load their sites and feeds up with ads and then belittle those who think that an ad-free site is nice.

18 Nov 2004 | Carl said...

Does that apply to people who use, for example, pop-up killers too?

Yes it does. Those ads pay for the content which you get for free. If everyone blocked popups like you block popups then the ad wouldn't generate any revenue which means the publisher wouldn't get paid which means the content wouldn't be there any more (or you'd have to pay for it directly).

Someone has to pay. When you thwart advertising, you are riding on other people's backs. Other people are paying so you can have your "free" content.

18 Nov 2004 | Ed Knittel said...

Paul hit on this perfectly - thanks for making clear what needed to be. Those who do not publish their whole message in their RSS feed, but write the enticing teaser, get the visitors to their site. Waxy and MANY MANY others do this. While I wish that he and others would post the whole story so I don't have to click here and here and here... I still visit the site because I want to see what else he has to say. Sure, you'll lose some subscribers to your feed - but this whole "testing out this crappy ad thing" hasn't helped either. Maybe people also wish this had been alpha-tested a little better too.

18 Nov 2004 | Jack Brewster said...

I must be honest that I only just now subscribed to the SvN feed because of a post in the Bradsoft forums (FeedDemon user, here) about the inclusion of ads. I wanted to see what all the evil was about. :)

JF said - As more and more people shift to RSS feeds, less and less will be visiting web sites (where the ads currently are). Indie publishers will need to generate lost revenue some way and RSS is a very fair way to do that.

What I wonder is, why does anyone who has a reliance on ad revenue post their entire content into the feed in the first place? If a site is using Google's ads, or some other solution, why not write blog content that makes visitors come to the site? Eric Meyer does this, though his site is an ad-free zone, so I'm not sure what his particular motivation is.

And for what it's worth, yes, I use Firefox, no I don't use any ad-blocking. I've got a fine tuned filtering system developed over years of marriage.

For Dick Costolo, the point about the NNW window being narrow applies to FeedDemon, as well.

18 Nov 2004 | Ed Knittel said...

Just read my Wired feed - and what do I see, Advertisers Muscle Into RSS. Too rich - especially when I see words like "Muscle Into" and I see Andy Baio of Waxy say:

"RSS is a syndication format. It's not well-suited to carrying ads," said Andy Baio, the author of popular blog Waxy.org. "It's designed for syndicating content, and content only. No navigation, no design, no advertisements."

And then of course we get Jason Fried's (JF) comment:

"All RSS is is just another content-delivery medium," he said. "Someone has to pay for that content, either through subscription fees or through advertising. I don't know why (RSS) should be sacred or any different than a website."

Andy just told you why. I think Andy's got the Signal and Jason's got the Noise.

18 Nov 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Carl said about popup blockers: If everyone blocked popups like you block popups then the ad wouldn't generate any revenue which means the publisher wouldn't get paid which means the content wouldn't be there any more (or you'd have to pay for it directly).

Or, if everyone blocked popups, advertisers might decide to stop using them and revert to more conventional ads that are less obtrusive and obnoxious. Wishful thinking, I know, but popups are worth stopping. I have nothing against Google ads or even larger display ads like you see at nytimes.com. But popups? They're the worst. They have a negative effect on me: The NY Times used to run popups from Orbitz, which made me swear to never visit the Orbitz site or buy anything from them as long as I live. I still don't even know what Orbitz sells, and I don't care.

18 Nov 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Brad -- Orbitz sells a pop-up ad blocker.

:)

18 Nov 2004 | zs said...

i can see putting in ads for "full content" rss feeds.

maybe the future could hold an ad-free "link and short summary" feed and an ad-sponsored "full content" feed.

information should be free, but web hosting costs money.

18 Nov 2004 | Serdar Kilic said...

I honestly don't mind ads coming through if feeds from what I would deem to be a commercial weblog. But I for one would be annoyed to see advertising in personal feeds - just like having Amazon or Goooogle ads on personal weblogs/websites IMHO takes something away from the personal aspect of it all.

18 Nov 2004 | Eric Lunt said...

Paul above said:

"The concept of RSS is to let people know that there is information available that may be of interest to them. That's all it should be used for, not to give you the full content as some now do."

Well, that's *one* valid use of RSS, but I think it's gone pretty far beyond that now. I personally much prefer a full-text feed to a summary feed, but that's probably a matter of personal preference. I think zs hit the nail on the head: there's nothing wrong with a publisher offering two versions of their feed (and in fact FeedBurner has a "Summary Burner" service that assists with this, so you only have to manage a single source feed). Given the choice between a summary-only feed with no ads and a full-text feed with ads, I'd go with the full-text feed every time. But that's just me -- others might view feeds differently, and so it may very well be appropriate to offer your audience the choice.

18 Nov 2004 | Barb said...

paul: The concept of RSS is to let people know that there is information available that may be of interest to them. That's all it should be used for....

Sorry my friend. The purpose of RSS is whatever purpose people use it for. neither you nor anybody else get to declare the only purpose of it. It definitely looks like feeds are used to read content to me! That's what I use them for.

19 Nov 2004 | One of several Steves said...

Saying that RSS is just a means to let people know information is available is like saying that's the only purpose of radio or TV or newspapers or magazines or the web or ...

RSS is a medium. Media get used for whatever will support it, either technically or commercially. Saying RSS should only be used for a narrow purpose is like saying ham radio is the only valid application of radio. After all, that started off merely as a way for ships and trains and the like to communicate with each other. I'm guessing that there was the same sort of hand-wringing when people started putting advertisements on the radio, that we were sullying a somehow "pure" medium.

Fretting about ads in RSS strikes me as so much neo-Ludditeism.

19 Nov 2004 | Mark said...

Is this discussion over yet. YAWN!

19 Nov 2004 | Paul said...

No way, Mark - the conversation about RSS is really just beginning all over!

Barb - didn't mean to offend you, but I was not declaring that I dictate RSS's use. But I will point out that no matter how you want to "use" it, we need to be sure that if we want it to evolve as a standard that becomes used in more places, we need to be careful not to muddy it with ads simply because we can and some short-sighted people are trying to find another way to make a buck.

And several Steves: RSS is not a medium, it is a distribution channel, like email. Media are newspapers (distributed by the "foot" channel), radio (air waves), TV (air (including satellite), cable), magazines ("foot"), etc.

So please don't confuse the medium with the distribution method. Once you understand this difference, then it is not so "neo-Luddite" to see why ads should not be in the distrubution channel but in the medium itself.

And others brought up the idea of short vs. full RSS feeds. Good points. I do use both and should have made room in my statements for both. I can see where people might believe that full feeds should have ads since you never visit the actual site.

But I will say this (and we have already done it) - no matter what "ad" mechanism you bury in a full feed, it will get stripped by certain aggregators.

Given the choice to see full feeds with and without ads, the consumer will choose without, especially when you give them the opportunity to better manage the information using tools built-into their reader.

That's just the way it is, so I would suggest that it is not economically feasible to pursue the charge of inserting ads in RSS feeds as they will never be fruitful and will take more energy to manage than they will produce revenue.

19 Nov 2004 | Franklin said...

...ads in RSS are inevitable. So are ad-killing aggregators. When I write mine, I'll be sure to come back and advertise it right here in the SvN comment boards. And no guff from you, now - "When you thwart advertising, you are riding on other people's backs."

19 Nov 2004 | One of several Steves said...

Paul, I don't see your distinction between its being a "distribution channel" and not a medium. A medium is, by definition, a distribution channel.

From definitions 2 and 3 at Dictionary.com:

2. An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on.
3. An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred.

There is no confusing the mediume with the distribution channel. They are one and the same.

And declaring that some should sort of pseudo-utopian "free" channel while others shouldn't is very much neo-Luddite. You want the new technology (the neo), but the attitude of wanting to cling desperately to some quaint notion of the "pure" past is very much Luddite.

There is nothing special about RSS that should make it any more or any less of a commerce-free zone than radio, TV, the Web, email, smoke signals, whatever. Remember, pretty much all of those media started off with free content designed to faciliitate ease of communication as well. And they've all survived the introduction of advertising and commerce (except maybe the smoke signals). RSS will do the same.

19 Nov 2004 | Paul said...

Fair enough, several Steves. You make some good points on the "medium" idea. If you go to the source of what RSS really is (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss), you find the definition as: RSS is a Web content syndication format. I can see where the idea of syndicated content can be considered new content in many eyes. I stand humbly corrected.

As for the "survival" of ads in other media: that does not mean that all media should be ad-driven. And I do say that unlike other media, this one will be infinitely easier to remove the non-content content, thereby rendering the economics of the ads useless to most people.

So we all lose our innocence for "the quaint notion of pure"? Just because everyone else soils a good thing means we are all to accept it? Great RSS feeds have existed for years without any ads supporting them. And many of the good ones today will continue to be ad-free. What has changed? Simply that a few people with $$$ on their brain have a scheme. There goes another "medium" compromised by the few.

I can clearly determine from your posts that you are one of those who is salivating at the money that ads in RSS feeds will make for you. Good luck. I do see RSS as special and will work hard to make it non-economical for you and your friends.

19 Nov 2004 | One of several Steves said...

As for the "survival" of ads in other media: that does not mean that all media should be ad-driven. And I do say that unlike other media, this one will be infinitely easier to remove the non-content content, thereby rendering the economics of the ads useless to most people.

I agree with you that it's likely that it will be easier to ignore the advertising content from the "valuable" content in RSS than in many other media. (I put "valuable" in quotes because I do believe that ads are not inherently invaluable; if I'm presented an ad for a product or service that I'm interested in and that helps me become aware of something that meets a need - a new product, a promotion that gets me a service cheaper, etc. - then it does indeed have value.) I'm all in favor of the marketplace coming up with ways to get around ads, and the advertisers trying to find new ways to reach their targets. It's worked out well for the web overall, with the advent of popup blockers as well as things like Google's context-sensitive advertising.

I'll quibble with you that some media should remain advertising-free. I don't believe that. Media are neutral. They're mere channels. I do agree that some content should remain content-free, and that will happen, just as NPR and PBS have found a way to provide (more or less) commercial-free content in very advertising-heavy media.

I can clearly determine from your posts that you are one of those who is salivating at the money that ads in RSS feeds will make for you.

Apparently you can't, because that couldn't be further from the truth. I distribute nothing via RSS, nor do I intend to (I can't keep my own website updated more than once every few months, so I don't have the time nor need to update anyone via RSS). Nor do I do any advertising. I will make precisely zero cents from advertising of any sort for as far as I am capable of seeing into the future.

My reasons for not being appalled by the idea of ads in RSS has nothing to do with personal gain. It has a lot to do with being realistic and not utopian, and wanting to see people be able to provide me the content I want to receive from them. For many of them, that means they need to find a way to pay the bills. If RSS is one way they can do it, more power to them. I'll continue to tune out the ads pretty much as I tune out most ads in all media. Yes, in a perfect world, I'd like everything I want to consume, including information, be free. I'm enough of a realist to realize that's just not possible.

20 Nov 2004 | mr. bungle said...

what happened? the ads suddenly got much more relevant

23 Nov 2004 | Major said...

Can you keep us informed if the amount of traffic on your feed is altering since the inclusion of ads?

23 Nov 2004 | JF said...

Can you keep us informed if the amount of traffic on your feed is altering since the inclusion of ads?

Our feed subscription is up roughly 10% since we launched RSS Ads.

01 Dec 2004 | maartn said...

If an ad adds value, is it a value-ad?