More On Advertising - More Advertising?
As long-time readers will know, all advertising revenue from Fight Aging! and the Longevity Meme is donated to the Methuselah Foundation. Currently, this money goes to help build the Methuselah Mouse Prize fund.
Our latest sponsor (you'll see their banners starting next week) is asking about other opportunities for advertising beyond the standard header banner you no doubt see at the top of this page. Examples included paid placement in the Resources section of the Longevity Meme, inclusion of links to sponsor articles, the inclusion of advertisments in the Longevity Meme newsletter and so forth.
I think that any sort of paid placement is a bad thing - it always has been a bad thing in search engines, for example. It subverts the useful original purpose of the places in which it occurs. Similarly, there is such a thing as too much advertising for a given website. However, inclusion of modestly sized text ads in the Longevity Meme newsletter seems like a reasonable step - assuming that the subscribers are on board with such a change. What else could fall into that category without stepping over the line?
I'm throwing this open to the gallery - what do you folks think? Ultimately, these sites are here for your benefit, so your suggestions and ideas are welcome.
In general, I don't mind ads and sponsored links as long as they are not annoying (e.g. rapidly flashing reds and yellows), and as long as they are relevant (I've seen a lot of sponsored links that are completely irrelevant to the web page or search I had requested), then they're not that bad a thing. While I don't like pushy marketing, I also understand the need for at least some modest passive marketing.
Besides, some of the companies you already link to, such as AOR and the LEF, may be hard to find on accident if one is not looking for them, so it's nice to have the links. And the money is going to a good cause, so that helps make it more palatable as well.
But I have decent bandwidth, so I'm not as affected as people on dialup.
I agree with Jay. I don't like ads that: move, flash, make sounds, or pop up. But I have no problem with Google text-only ads.
I would love to see more advertising on this site if it (i) supports the blog, (ii) supports the Methuselah Mouse Prize, and/or (iii) supports companies like AOL and LEF. These latter promote "vitamin milkshakes" but also remain committed to life extension--whether that is accomplished through milkshakes or gene therapy.
As long as I know a) that the money is truly going to support the prize and b) that the advertisers are vetted to be of interest to the readership and are not selling junk that promises to help you lose weight by eating eclairs as fast as you can, I'm for it. Thus, you would need to continue to exercise "editorial control" of the sponsors. This would be appreciated by the viewers and would make the placement of sponsor's info of much greater value and cachet - thus increasing the value proposition to the sponsor as well.
As the guy who is picking up the checks, one would hope you are noticing the monies coming in to the prize fund :)
Certainly the checks are coming in and they go straight to the prize fund :-) I was answering your question as a civilian - not wearing my Foundation hat.
I agree with most of the comments concerning the advertising. If it is not annoying, is relavent and not just hype then I say go for it. I like the fact that revenues would support the Methuselah Mouse Prize fund.