A New Experiment...

... or, "Hey Ya Bastard, What's With The Ads? (Part 2)"

So, if you came by earlier today (or yesterday, or last week, or whenever...) to take a look at my new "Support Your Local Filmmaker" post, you probably noticed that I've been messing around with the site lay-out a bit this morning.

As you probably know, I'm a big fan of a few online comic strips, such as Something*Positive and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal... over the years, as I've visited those sites and laughed at their twisted humor, I've also been impressed by the ads on them... they're contextual. They don't stand out as being inconsistent with the interests of the audience that visits the site. In fact, I found myself clicking on the banners more often than not.

When I clicked the "Your Ad Could be Here" link below these ads, I started to understand why. The company that provides these sites' ads, Project Wonderful, has a completely different model than Google's Adsense program... rather than reading keywords on a page and automatically displaying ads from Google's "pool" of advertisers (have you noticed how many "cruise ads" have popped up since I added those slide shows from Trish and my Alaska cruise?), Project Wonderful matches advertisers with "publishers" through an "auction" system - the process isn't automated, but personal.

There's a lot to like about Project Wonderful's system - I really like the human element; advertisers have to take a look at my site, understand the content of my posts, and decide if you - my readers - would respond to whatever it is they're pitching. I also like the auction-style pricing structure; the advertisers bid against each other for the top position on my site. They get to determine what the top-spot on my blog is worth (though I can set a minimum bid price to start them off).

Perhaps the best part of this system is the level of control it gives me as the "publisher -" I don't have much control at all with Google's Adsense program; I can block ads from particular advertisers, or from up to five advertising sectors... but that's it. Those cruise ads I mentioned earlier? I know most of you don't care to find out how inexpensive a cruise to Italy is... you might want to see the photos from Trish and my cruise, but that's it.

With Project Wonderful, I approve each and every ad that gets displayed on the site. If someone wants to advertise something I don't think you care about, I don't approve it - it's that easy. More to the point, I get to approve ads for things I care about - and I think you should know about. So, if a local theatre company or film company wants to advertise on the blog - I'm approving that straight-away. An editor who wants to advertise his services for reel-making? It's up there. "Male enhancement" and "search engine optimization?" No way. I've got the control.

Look, like I said in my earlier post about adding advertising to the blog, I have no illusions that I'm going to get rich off of these little ads... I'm throwing them up there for a little supplemental income, and to test various advertising models for Animus Cross and Dex Dixon. If project wonderful lets me get a few pennies AND give people I want to support a platform to advertise their goods and services... well, I call that a win-win.

And hey, like the box says, your ad could be at the top of my blog, for just a few cents a day. I get to say yay or nay (and if you're a reader, I'll probably say "yay.") Want to play around with it? Visit Project Wonderful and see how easy it is to set up an ad; then, click the "Your Ad Could Be Here" link at the top of the page and bid on an ad spot. It's cheap, and if I can drive more clicks over to your web site... well, I'm happy to do it.

Hey Ya Bastard! What's With The Ads?

Yeah, you're right... if you're reading this directly on my blog, and not from Facebook, AliveNotDead, Plaxo, whereever else I've got a "feed" set up, you've probably noticed the new "feature" up at the top of the page. Does this mean, as one emailer said the other day, that I've "sold out and started putting ads on [my] site?" Well... yeah, I guess it does... but is it wrong to try and make a little scratch from something you enjoy doing? That's what I've been doing for most of my professional life, ya know?

Look, as I said way back in the beginning of March, "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Creative." This year has been an interesting one financially... On one hand, my acting income is WAY up from last year. I've had a pretty good year. On the other hand, my day job has taken a bit of a hammering over the past year. I mean, it's not a surprise... when money's tight (or when people are afraid that money's going to get tight), they hold off on repairs or investment in new systems. Consequently, the guy who does the repairs or helps set up the new systems... yeah. You get the picture.

Now, Don't get me wrong... Trish and I aren't eating rice and beans every night or anything like that (though I won't pretend that finances didn't play a part in Trish's decision to spend more time outside gardening this year - with good results, I might add. We won't be buying tomatoes for a long, long time!) We've have had to watch our pennies a little, though, and we've had to explore alternate means of income... for instance, I finally got my voice studio finished in the garage, and have been sending out voiceover auditions.

Similarly, though I've resisted this for a long time, I've started a Google Adsense account that puts those small, text-based ads at the top of the blog. It doesn't cost me anything, and it's just one more possible revenue source. Now, I have no illusions that I'm going to get rich off of these little ads... for one thing, my blog traffic just isn't that high. I have maybe 500 page loads a month? Maybe?

That's ok, though... if these little ads yield $10 a month, that's $10 a month. That's just one more little stream (or trickle) of income to add to the pot... which is how Trish and I have been living our financial live forever. A little trickle here added to a stream from this project there and a residual from that project and a small stipend from the other project... it all combines to get the bills paid and save a little each month. As long as you're smart about where you put your money and how you spend it, you can do ok living life without one single, steady pay check.

There's an added bonus, as well... I'm starting to work on the producing side of the camera a bit with some of the web series I appear in. Learning how to generate revenue from web resources is all a part of that... that's not to say that you're going to start seeing Google Ads on Animus Cross' web site... but, then again, some times you never know where they'll pop up...

So, that's the story with the ads. If you'd like to help out a little, click on one of them up top and see where it leads. If you're reading this through a "feed" to Facebook, Plaxo, or wherever, visit the source at http://trishandharold.blogspot.com/ and click the ad there... I'd appreciate the extra $10, if you don't mind passing it my way.

Thanks for listening...

-Harold