For the first time, I've been asked directly whether I'd be interested in posting click-through banners on the blog in order to promote a site and consequently receive compensation in return. I've had issue with affiliate programs from the start; it was my intent to keep this blog free of advertising and do promotion of events and latex designers that I believe in through posts and links in the link lists (which I know need a clean-up; you don't need to tell me! ;p).
I want to keep the look and style of the blog free from banner clutter; you may have noticed that over the years I've had expanding and reducing numbers of links at the bottom of the page for retailers, the only place I ever had for banner ads. At the moment there are no retail banners and only links through to events that I attend.
Over the last year, I've been more and more tempted to try affiliation programs; I mean, it's only a few banner ads and what's wrong with making a little residual income from the blog? I dunno - call me stupid, I want to try to remain true to my principles, and one of the original principles I set for myself was to not sully the blog with advertising....it was meant and is always meant to be a place for rubbermen to come for information and entertainment....there are lots of other places where retailers can advertise, and lord knows how much inadvertent promotion they've received over the years here through the conversations and hyperlinks in the posts.
At the same time, I laugh at my dramatics: it's just a stupid blog. Hell, if Alicia Keys can be a Global Creative Director for Blackberry ($$$), what's a couple of residual-income banner ads on a gay rubber blog?
What do you think? Would it make a difference to you as a reader whether there were banners ads displayed on Rubber Canuck?
5 comments:
I think implementing ads is a pure waste of time because nowadays most people use ad blockers. So you won't make much money from the ads and you'd annoy the few people that don't have an ad blocker installed ... just my opinion.
The guy has a point, i would react in the same way.the other thing with ads is that one isn't aware if they are not going to also add in a virus?
Go with your original instinct Reid, principal over a few bucks is more than worth it.
Since I mostly read your blog via Google Reader, it won't have much impact on me. Unless I click through to a video, I won't see the ads.
your blog is one of the very few with no ads and extremely high quality content. compare your blog to allamericankinkster.com and you'll see the difference. most of the men on your blog are REAL not idealized porn actors faking their love of rubber. please DON'T begin accepting ads and polluting what I consider a high-quality, pristine blog!
I'm not a big fan of advertisements, but I really don't see the harm in giving it a try. You already link to, and showcase many rubber/kink related stores, websites and communties. All of which benefit from the free advertisement.
Considering that you've never accepted advertisements before, you can also be very particular about conditions of the ad. Only advertise for companies you personally back, or for websites you think are outstanding. These kind of things can help mitigate the downsides of advertisements, but still give you a chance to try it out.
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