Is it cool if I put an ad on the RSS feed?

Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I was thinking of putting the banner ad from the top of the site on the bottom of the RSS feed.  For two reasons:

Reason one: I’m planning on doing something fun with the banner ad.  I’ve instituted a minimum bid on the ad, and unless people are willing to fork over the big bucks (ten cents a day), that ad box displays whatever I want.  I’ve asked the authors of webcomics I love if they’d like to put up an ad when there aren’t any bids and several of them are down for it.  So what that means is that some of the time the ad is going to promote my favorite sites on the internet, and some of the time it is going to promote deep-pocketed high rollers.

Exciting!

Reason two: It might make the ad box more profitable.

But I don’t want to just foist ads on you even if I think they are cool.  So let me know what you think.

  • Fine by me.

    BTW - Love the comic!

    D!

    By Dez! on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Ehh, they might not be annoying.  Go for it. 

    By Aak on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Gangstas gotta get paid, right?

    By Camille on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Is it cool if I have Adblock and don’t click on the add?
    I’d like to support the comic, so I’m just wondering if you would still get the advertising money.

    By kev on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • No problemo.
    BTW - Love the comic too!

    :D

    By Pratap on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • DO IT. OR ELSE.

    By aakside on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Good with your setup.  Some RSS feeds have no content, just a link to the site.  But, they’ll still have an ad at the bottom of the feed.  That irks me.  But, if there’s content, then no problem with the ads.

    Thanks for the laughs.

    By Mikey on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • DO IT!

    I don’t really mind ads in rss feeds, cos i dont get disctracted by bad layout, i can just read the content and be done with it.

    Go for it.

    By Sahil on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Thanks everyone that has responded so far and the general encouragement.

    I hope you all know that it is totally cool if you don’t click on the ads if they aren’t interesting or block them if you don’t want to see them at all.  You viewing the site in a manner that is comfortable to you is more important than anything.

    It might sort of impact advertising money but not that much, so don’t worry about it.  Right now I’m close to earning at a rate where I can comfortably pay for hosting.  I just want to see if I can do a bit more to make sure of it.

    By Sanjay on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Sounds like a plan

    A good plan, that is. If it didn’t sound like a plan at all I would be pretty concerned

    By greg on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Go for it. If I don’t want to see them I can use Adblock.

    By Anon on Tuesday, January 13, 2009

  • Go for it.  Even if some people drop your feed, it is probably a net-positive in the long run.  I just appreciate that you actually include the comment in the feed.

    By Ted Carnahan on Wednesday, January 14, 2009

  • Oh man, I’d be super sad if someone dropped the feed because of this.

    If someone feels like doing that, let me know.

    By Sanjay on Wednesday, January 14, 2009

  • Don’t sweat it.  Content + Ad in the feed is always ok.  Unless the ads are about how I can know for sure that my man is really gay.

    By Michael O'Neill on Wednesday, January 14, 2009

  • fine with me

    By maddie on Wednesday, January 14, 2009

  • As long as you stay funny!

    By Benjamin on Wednesday, January 14, 2009

  • In general, the less ads I see the happier I am.

    But as a former blogger, I would be very upset if you didn’t do as much as you could to make money as long as you stick with something like Project Wonderful.

    By Timmy on Tuesday, September 1, 2009

  • No problem.  Plenty of feeds are ad-supported.  If that’s what it takes to keep going, go for it.

    By Chip on Wednesday, September 2, 2009

  • As long as the RSS feed keeps the comic, go for it!

    By Jonathan Johnson on Wednesday, September 2, 2009

  • Please include ads.  I feel bad when I don’t click back to the website but want to support you.  It would be easier for the ads to appear in the RSS.

    By Michael on Wednesday, September 2, 2009