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This is the day I sold out
Yes I sold out and put up some Google banners. I sold out.
I do not want to piss people off. But this is an attempt to be able to host this site without having to worry about paying bandwidth bills.
I don't know how much these will bring in but all I want to do is to break even. Google tends to not be evil and their ads are as tactful as ads can be. There are no pop up ads no flashing applets and no spyware. It is cool and creepy how the banner ad will customize to the content of the page. On the Snape Is a Goth post it shows a Harry Potter related banner. I betcha that this page might get a Harry Potter banner because I just mentioned it again.
If you really don't like them just go ahead and block them using AdBlock for Firefox. This is my choice and I am still going to say what ever the hell I want to say because I am still calling the shots just with a banner ad or two. The absolute last thing I want to do is to piss off my readers. Once the first check arrives I will be much more inspired to write to this site on a more daily basis.
So what do you think? I know this is a shock since I just changed the comment system when I upgraded Movable Type. I don't plan on littering the pages with ads but I am still working on the new design of this site. The front page is the only one with the tower ad but all pages have a single banner ad at the top.
So do I suck or what? If you are going to stop reading this site because of the ads or comment moderation just let me know.
I feel like drowning my guilt in a bag of Cheetos.
Jake at August 22, 2005 
WebDev
Comments
To be honest, I didn't notice the ads until you actually mentioned them.
I'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Posted by: Matt at August 23, 2005 12:46 AM
Selling out? I don't think so. Now, had you obtained several sponsors, and inked a contract with one of those IE toolbar companies then flooded your site with banners and popups (like every ugo.com site, for example) THEN you would've sold out. This is just an attempt to try and cover your costs =)
But if I may make one suggestion: edit your post and take out the line about clicking on the banners. That violates the Google AdSense ToS. While I doubt Google will actually take notice, you don't want someone with a grudge to report you on that.
Posted by: Jason at August 23, 2005 3:27 AM
Hmm, I'm not sure how comparable your sites are but I just had a quite look at Maddox's page over at http://maddox.xmission.com
Since posting his most recent article the counter has hit ~950,000 or so, which by my reckoning means his page must be serving ~30,000 hits per day. While I appreciate his pages are simple, some are quite image heavy indeed.
Perhaps you should ask him how he manages that without having adverts?
I personally am not particularly 'bothered' by such adverts as i'll block them anyway, but if selling out bothers you (which it apparently seems to), why not look into other options for the hosting and suchlike?
Rich.
Posted by: Rich at August 23, 2005 6:34 AM
I don't mind the ad's, but would like to see them above the 8BitJoystick title. Everthink about putting thoe Google text ads at the top of the article body (white part)?
Posted by: Shawn L ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.8bitjoystick.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 23, 2005 3:57 PM
