Could This be the Direction of Feed Advertising?
Promoting your RSS feed is a big deal. It is a process of trying to convince your readers that they should return to your site and continue reading your content through a distribution service, like a RSS reader. When you turn off or remove the ability for readers to subscribe through RSS, you are also reducing your responsibility, giving more power to the people who find your site through search engines.
Throughout the age of advertising-supported content on the web, problems have exited. For one, as a content producer or publisher (blogger), you either have to settle for quality or quantity, and there really is no in-between. You either settle for all the advertisers that come your way, opening the flood gates to sidebar advertising, in-post advertising, feed advertising, header advertising, and more, or you side with one or two that are able to support and fund your operation.
Google purchased FeedBurner for a reason, and one reason only: to expand the number of people that they can place ads in front of. Where there are bloggers, there is open space and markets for ads to fall upon.
What I See Happening
As the economy slumps around the world and domestically, Google, and literally every other company has to make ends meet, extending their reach or changing their traditional ways of doing business. In the case of Google, they’re trying to distribute more ads through more sources than ever before. First in Image Search, then the admin area of Blogger (more recently), and now, even more than before, through feeds/RSS.
Google could choose to monetize their Google Reader service on their own, placing links in-between the columns or between posts, but I don’t think most content producers and bloggers would feel that as acceptable, when they don’t see any return on those ads. Instead, they gave the ability to place ads in their content, meaning anyone that subscribes to their feed sees the ads.
Initially, there were quite a few limitations, especially in FeedBurner “pre-Google.” You could only place ads at the top or bottom of your content, sometimes only one per post. This was acceptable, until now.
The Direction of Feed Advertising
Google has begun allowing, through the use of the content distributor/creator, the ability to place more than one ad, and often, multiple ads right next to each other, similar to sidebar feeds. Now, there is nothing wrong with making some money through your blog to support advertising costs, marketing, staff, hosting, and making a living for yourself, but it tarnishes your brand and the brand of those who advertise in these areas.
Often, on niche-specific sites, you’ll find that the advertisers are fairly similar, sometimes competing. Who do I choose? Which advertisement is more appealing, and which one (likely) paid more for the slot? Is this what I should be asking myself when I visit these sites or read their RSS feed?
Alternately, there should be a focused, defined set of advertisers that stick with your brand for a longer time (two months or more) and can afford a larger advertising budget. Yes, this isn’t a real-world case, but there are certainly advertising companies and blogs that are able to operate on this model.
Fusion Ads and The Deck are two premier advertising networks that focus on this. Most (if not all) of their advertisers and sponsors are listed on the main page, and only one or two ads are served on each page, making the ads really unobtrusive, elegant, and focused. The message behind the ads is more creative and there is purpose. You are led to click on the ads because they are relevant to the site and likely appeal to you.
On the larger scale, Google, Yahoo, or any other ad network wouldn’t be able to do this for all their clients. Thousands join every day, and advertisers need the ability to change their targets and ad formats on a daily basis.
The publisher (again, the blogger) places multiple ads on the site, seeing the income opportunities, but avoiding the greater cost of placing those ads there, and associating with the “hundreds” of companies on the site.
Conclusion
Much of what I see happening coincides with the horrors that have come with the spread to more mobile, easily digested formats, including RSS, Twitter, and social media. There is no way to avoid the circle of “some space here, let’s get another advertiser” that continues.
When I say this, I am not attacking or trying to point out any single blogs/blog owners, as it can simply be a decision that you have to make, as a result of costs related to your blog. Inspiration can sometimes come out of the newfound income, and this is good in the long-term. But, a line will soon need to be drawn where advertisements are placed and the real affects this can have on your image.
