criticism of google feed ads

Interesting feedback on Google feed ads from the Syndicate conference; apparently Google's offering isn't ready for primetime:

I went to the Google table and had a chat with their representatives about AdSense for feeds, and came off feeling that this product was nowhere near ready. It doesn’t support anything but Blogger and Movable Type. Apparently, the code Google created isn’t any standard code that can just be dumped in; its code specific to the blogging platform, so don’t expect a lot of adoption for a while. Considering that (1) users of Blogger probably don’t need it (2) WordPress is hugely popular (3) most RSS feeds aren’t coming from blogging software, but from company websites that want to keep people updated and (4) no news organization uses blogging software, so they can’t use Google, this is going to be a problem.

The reps told me they reduced the size of the ads to 468 pixels in width, which is an improvement, but still not good enough. In a two or three-pane view, the portion with the blog posts can be quite small. This means the ad can be wider than the window, forcing vertical scrolling. It is very annoying, especially considering these are text ads. Since they are just text, can’t Google find a way that the text wraps? You’d think. While the Google people were knowledgeable and friendly, the product looks far too beta for widespread adoption at this point.

RSSads now taking beta testers

RSSads is now taking beta testers, if you're interested leave a comment.

google ads in rss

So according to this Google is testing AdSense in RSS. The integration code from TUAW.com's RSS feed is:

href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/16:7448?pos=0">

..Which is cool on one hand because you send over a permalink to the blog post and they give back contextual content; but on the other hand its an image ad only, which seems kind of broken. I'd hate to have to download that image on my sidekick.

feedburner + overture not working

Hm, doesn't sound like the FeedBurner/Overture combination is doing very well:

Since I'm on the topic of Boing Boing, we've been testing Yahoo's long tail RSS ads. It's tough to find ads that are relevant to Boing Boing's content, and often the program fails - defaulting to pretty random ads. But when this combination hit my RSS aggregator, I had to note it....

This is predictable - keyword search driven ads probably aren't as lucrative as directly placed ads for medium to high traffic websites.

feedster doing rss ads?

Apparently via Kanoodle, at least according to Battelle.

curious

Its interesting watching the discussion on ads in RSS. Is there something I'm missing - or are Scoble and the other thought leaders trying to push a version of the Fark controversy as the solution:

Simple: we need a new advertising model. Content providers should have a way to get paid for linking to things. Actually, Amazon.com is showing the way here. Its associates program is paying webloggers back for linking to Amazon. That's an effective way to make money (note: I do not use affiliate programs on my blog -- if I link to something I am not getting paid for doing so).

...well it sure looks like it! I'm not sure this will work well. Jason Calcanis and others' reaction to Fark (apparently) selling placement of stories was VERY negative. I think the same reaction would be replicated. I know I wouldn't trust my favorite weblogs (say, Scripting News or Buzzmachine) if I knew that some percentage of their links were there just to trick me into clicking on them. I wouldn't like it if News.com was selling stories to startups either. TELL me what is advertising and what isn't. And give me the whole truth, not spin designed to make me click. Otherwise I would rather just have a feed direct from a seller that I'm interested in (the other way to do RSS ads correctly). End of day: I am skeptical of RSS advertising that isn't clearly marked as such.

conditional GET

Hopefully in the discussion about RSS scaling issues, everyone can remember that conditional GET is a really useful way to reduce the load.