When I asked if my linkblog should have comments, Jim responded that the new (as of today) sponsor box could have comments as well. I still remember when Kuro5hin began offering comments on their advertisers and it worked pretty well.
So here's your chance to comment on Performancing, this month's sponsor.
And, before anyone asks, yes this is new. They get an ad and a link--that's it. December 2005 is the first month that I've had a sponsor on my blog. I'm curious to see how it goes and would love your feedback.
Posted by jzawodn at December 01, 2005 07:08 AM
It's a little odd seeing a bunch of bloggers sponsor another blogger, but whatever.
Atleast this time there are no arrows pointing at Andy Hagan's mug.
Jeremy,
I like it - if sponsors ever wanted to advertise on my blog (which only I read) I'd do the same.
On a related note, I pull your feed into my RSS, so I'm sorry to say I can't remember the last time I came to visit your actual site (maybe 4 months ago?), despite really enjoying the content. This post and the prior one brought me back to it, and I found a world of other good reasons to come back. Keep up the great work -
Chris
> Atleast this time there are no arrows pointing at Andy Hagan's mug.
It had to go, it was making the other bloggers jealous!
My personal opinion on the sponsor thing is "ah, I'm glad I use the RSS feed."
I like the sponsorship concept but a bit confused/skeptical about what Performancing thinks and claims.
The notion that anybody other than a handful of elite bloggers like Jeremy could make full time pay from blogging is not at all realistic. John Batelle's fantasy is to make "great blogs" like this one pay better but he's just starting and I'm skeptical he'll find big money with Federated media.
One of the reasons blogging is taking off is that it's like the "old web", where one's voice was in proportion to interesting content rather than monetary resources or strategy.
Hi everyone,
I LOVE the idea of people being able to comment on ads, I tried it over at Threadwatch and it was "so so" but i think could have been so much more if advertisers were just a bit braver!
Regarding your points Joe:
I think it is realistic that people can make full time living from blogging - but not blogging just opinion on whatever happens to be the news of the day (not for most anyway). People, including me, have made a living from web publishing for years before blogs were a big thing - blogs are, at the end of the day, a website right?
So with that in mind, if we can help show bloggers some of the skills you need to have in order to make a living online, but applied specifically to the blog format, it has to be at the very least an interesting conversation to be part of :)
Hope you all enjoy the site, and thanks for the opportunity to sponsor yours, and participate in the comments Jeremy.
Nice job that fella!
Thanks for the thoughtful post Nick! Although you haven't changed my mind I really give you props for sponsoring this great blog AND participating in the discussion.
Jeremy I like the idea of comments for ads. There is a lot more depth, and perhaps quality, in the "experience" of getting pitched when you can discuss the pitch.
Indeed. That's what this blog stuff is all about, right? A two-way discusion rather than simply a one-way broadcast?
Jeremy, when I did this, i got TONS of nice comments from readers. They really liked it for the most part. The thing is, the advertiser has to take the rough with the smooth, not all comments are going to be nice, and some could be downright ugly.
The loose policy i had was this:
* If the comment is negative, but constructive (ie it gives a reason, rather than "you suck!") it stays
* Anything abusive goes
* If i even *suspect* a user is actually the adv'er just bumping the thread, it goes
And here's the real good bit, for those very, very few advertisers that get it: A negative comment is **a marketing opportunity** -- Yes, it is.
Right! ... i think ... In terms of interactivity I'm wondering what is the optimal online environment .... blogs suffer because interaction is somewhat limited. Forums are often polluted with junk and irrelevancy.
Joe, this is something that's bothered me about blogs a lot. I used Drupal in all my blogs (er.. bar the one im just setting up actually..) and by using the tracker module, you can have an "active list" that gives you a list of recently commented on threads so it acts much like a forum would - it's very neat. Plus private messaging and a whole bunch of other stuff.
If you check the "recent posts" lnk on the right, you'll see what i mean.
Nick - I see what you mean and I agree it's a great feature. A project I was going to launch in a few months was to be a travel *forum* to interconnect several of my travel sites, but highly interactive blogging has a nice advantage of not requiring a large community to be "interesting". Time to do both I think.
One word:
Adblock.
I never noticed the change since it never showed up. Thank you Adblock.
I purchased one of the sponsor ads you see above. According to Greg Boser, I should be penalized by Google or Yahoo for purchasing advertising space on a high-profile and high-traffic website. You make no sense Greg. I have good rankings on the search engines already, thank you... I purchased this link for traffic and care less if it gives me a boost in G, Y, or M.
Careful Jeremy, you might splooge additional traffic to those who are paying you! Better wrap it up!!!!
I am just curious if I could sponsore the sponsors comment section. I think that would be really cool.
FYI, has anyone tried the Performancing extension with TypePad? Best I can tell, TypePad is not supported in the current release. Anybody know differently?
So did the sponsor change to Text Link Ads or did Performancing just swap out their ad with Patrick's?
Either way, it's still a fitting match given that stupid hoopla over paid links here a couple of months ago.
I too tried running the ads pointing to a post with comments past some advertisers, and it just seemed to confuse them even more, especially one company Nick may know from the Ukraine.
