Someone has inserted a trackback to one of **MY** posts that contains these highly irritating Google ads. I am now furious.
What is the intention of this person? Is he (could be a she or android as well) going to give me a share of the $0.01 he/she/android earns by those who follow my trackbacks and then click on these ads? My previous posts related to blogging and ads are: Google ads == spam and Ads on Bloglines.
Invest in Google and you will be rich soon.
Hi Anjo,
I'm really sorry to offend you because of my ads. If you'd prefer I removed the link to your post I'm more than happy to do so. I just thought your work on the visualization was fascinating and wanted to share it with my readership.
I personally am thankful when I get a track back to something I've written - when someone quotes me and points to my work I think thats great.
Anyway just let me know if you want me to remove the post - I'll not link up to you again if you'd rather not have the attention. All you have to do is email me - it isn't a big deal.
Posted by: Darren Rowse | January 28, 2005 at 04:48 AM
Darren, I have no problem if you link to me at all. I have a problem with trackbacks on my blog to posts that contain ads. I'll leave it as it is for the moment and think about it further.
Posted by: Anjo | January 28, 2005 at 04:01 PM
This is essentially the same problem that Martin Schwimmer has with Bloglines, though via a different path (http://trademark.blog.us/blog/2005/01/14.html#a1530). He is worried that his syndicated content (and all of our content) is going to be presented in a bloglines window with advertising (eventually). And that advertising could be for his competitors.
Another aspect of the syndication / aggregation problem is that it is not clear on my of the aggregation pages that the content was created somewhere else. This is particularly true at Bloglines, but also in other locations.
Posted by: Jack Vinson | January 28, 2005 at 11:47 PM
Jack, Thanks. Good to know there are others who have the same frame of mind. The only thing that separates us is an awful lot of water.
Posted by: Anjo | January 29, 2005 at 01:12 AM
I hear what you're saying. I suspect there is a bit of difference with the bloglines thing Jack. The main difference is that I'm not basically reproducing a persons blog but rather using short quote, or a paraphrase and then providing a link back to the original source. Also what I'm doing is taking some manual time out to read and link to another person's quality post where as bloglines automatically and indescriminantly does it with every RSS feed it can get its hands on.
As i say - I can see your point but I'm not sure what to do about it. I've chosen to use ads - i guess i could turn off trackback but that kind of defeats the purpose of blogging''s interactive nature. I dont want to offend anyone by linking up to them and I don't use trackback to deviously get people to my blog where they'll click an ad, but rather to enhance conversation....hmmm
interesting topic to discuss. Thanks for getting me thinking
Posted by: Darren Rowse | January 30, 2005 at 08:00 AM
Darren, One suggestion for continuing the thinking is that if everybody would insert ads inside their posts pretty soon all of us would be looking at ads and then we start wondering: why were blogs a good idea anyway?
Is it, perhaps, an idea to include ads only if you provide the original content.
Posted by: Anjo | January 30, 2005 at 11:01 PM
That would be one approach. Another approach would be that if someone spends hours and hours every day searching for quality content, filtering it, making comment upon and adding to it and presenting it to their readers who are seeking such a filtered news service that that is a valid service to make an income from.
I have a problem with the growing number of automated websites that indiscriminately rip off large numbers of bloggers work and reproduce them on their own sites - but what I'm seeking to do is to provide my readers with a hub of information that saves them time and energy whilst providing other bloggers on my topic with some referral traffic. I don't quote whole articles, always give links and try where possible to have something constructive to say about the post I'm linking to (sometimes its more constructive than others).
Most of those that I link to see what I'm doing as actually adding something to their blog - I read and celebrate their content, I provide them with readership, I add to their page ranking in SEs and I affirm and try to constructively add to their work. To me these are all elements of what blogging is about. I desire to do more and more of this but need to pay for the massive bandwidth that it takes when people utilize the services that I provide and would also like to feed my family.
I respect your opinion however and always would respond to requests to cease from linking to blogs by their owners (not that I've had one in the two years of my blogging). In an ideal world I'd love to be able to do what I do without the need for advertising - but I guess its a choice I've made for the time being that for most seems pretty acceptable.
Posted by: Darren Rowse | January 31, 2005 at 05:21 AM
I appreciate your comments. As said before I cannot think of anybody who dislikes a link. And the good news is that the Google ads are scripts (I checked!).
Posted by: Anjo | February 02, 2005 at 12:24 AM