Syndication and advertising
If I hadn't thought that the Atom mailing list had gone mostly around the bend already (how many date format emails can you possibly pay attention to?) - then the reaction to this piece on advertising in a feed would have convinced me. There was a suggestion to add an extension to Atom in support of ads. Yeah, that'll work. All clients that would so much as bother to enable that extension raise your hands now.
This is astoundingly simple, and it's already happening. Syndication content is text or HTML. Which means.... you can put ad content in as an item. Apparently that's just way, way too simple for some of the deep thinkers over on the mailing list - if there's not an RFC deploying toxic word fog on the issue, it's not solved yet. Pardon me while I snore...
Comments
Syndication and advertising
[ Michael Lucas-Smith] October 18, 2004 18:41:01.963
Comment by Michael Lucas-Smith
Ah, but here's a thought. What if those who put adverts as items in their feed marked them as an advert - so that readers could simple ignore such items and never bother the user with them. :)
Syndication and advertising
[ James Robertson] October 18, 2004 19:27:47.773
Comment by James Robertson
Michael, you make my point - why would advertisers want that?
Syndication and advertising
[ Michael Lucas-Smith] October 18, 2004 20:44:17.407
Comment by Michael Lucas-Smith
I know. But what if by marking the advert some details are provided to the news reader for your news reader to contact the person who runs the advert. By doing so, you collect $0.00001 for yourself and potentially $0.00001 for the reader in a paypal account. Therefore, there is incentive to let the ads come through. At the moment, websites actually make money by putting banner ads on them - who's to say that revenue model couldn't be directed at focused readerships via blogs? - not that I'm saying this is a /good/ thing..