The Bad Ads

Every once in a while, I like to sift thru my blog listings and get everyone who reads my blog [which, essentially, are the people who I read] a glimpse into these other great blogs.

Of course, a hot topic is the recent advertisments on all our blogs.  It sucked to be shut down for a day....and we all feel a tad dirty because of it.  For a scathing commentary...check out George Cozatanza at Coztanza's Commentary: Brought To You By....  Pretty heavy take on his dislike of the ads atop the blogs. 

" I have no clue where this ad came from. I have not agreed to endorse these companies. AOL just unilaterally imposed it earlier today on this as well as every other AOL blog. I guess now I'm somehow responsible to them, a deal I never agreed to. I encourage everybody to avoid clicking on the ads above and to spend your money on companies like Jet Blue, Bank One, and any other rivals of the companies listed above.  In reality, this is not a huge deal. However, the principle of the matter is troubling on many levels. For one, they are taking my writing and gaining profit off of it without compensating my fellow bloggers or me. If it's my writing, shouldn't I see some of the profits? Cash, a discount on my AOL bill, just offer something since you are making a profit off of my work.  There is a chance that the GeorgeCoztanza blog franchise may join many others and find a new home. I hope it doesn't come to that, but at this point it is a viable option. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that executives will go into panic mode reading that a small sports blogger might be leaving AOL. However, I take a lot of pride in my blogging and think that I put out a pretty good product. If AOL wants to use me for monetary gain without proper compensation, as small as that might be, I will be forced to consider leaving the blogosphere here. "

Die Cast Dude also voiced his displeasure over the ads.  In his Remember Us... The Ones Paying Your Salaries? take, he says "Yesterday,without a word of notice AOL decided to insert banner ads at the top of every Journal belonging to an AOL member.  It has ignored the immediate howls of protest by AOL members decrying this violation of what is supposed to be their personal space, and based on its actions cares not a whit about the score of heavy hitters in J-Land, covering the entire spectrum of topics, it shamelessly uses to promote AOL as the place to be a cyberspace family who now have already moved their blog elsewhere or are actively taking the necessary measures to do so.  Oh, and unlike other blog hosts which allow bloggers to at their discretion reach an agreement with a third-party ad company like BlogAds or others to place ads on that person's blog with both blogger and the ad company sharing in resulting revenue, who do you think gets every penny from the ads on AOL Journals?  Here's a hint: I'm certainly not getting any checks with my name on them in the "pay to" field."

Yannis put his own take out there, AOL Executives Suck Ass, which also delves into his displeasure....with a special take on something in which I agree with.  "The world of blogging made it's best Laguna Beach impression today. As you can see, advertising banners have been posted at the top of all AOL blogs, without letting us know a damn thing, or having control over it. So now you'll see lame ads everytime you come to my blog, or anyone else's blog. Is this right? No, it absolutely is not. When has AOL given a crap what we think though? They let the message boards become flat out crap, they quit monitoring chat rooms, and if you wanna try and TOS someone, they damn near have to go through the computer and stab you for anything to happen. I had a friend have his personal information posted on the message boards, yet the poster of that information never had a damn thing done to him. Hell, a friend of mine had a death threat posted on his blog, but they didn't care about that. But, they do care enough to use us for advertisement."

The Scotsman has moved to http://scotsmansnascar.blogspot.com/.  "I've enjoyed my assocoiation with AOL and willcontinue my association with SBL... this site will remain up as archive for a while... but please  re-direct your bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc.the above link     Thanks"

My beef with AOL has always been consistency.  I understand that I've signed up for a service....their service...in which I have agreed to certain rules and regulations.  However, these rules become more and more fractured each year.  And it is things like this that peeve people off on AOL to begin with.

Seven years ago....I actually went into chat rooms and chatted about topics in those chat rooms.  There is a good chance that I could go into the NBA CHAT ROOM and actually talk about NBA hoops.  Now, it is an array of "___________ sucks!!!"  or "___________ is gay".  If I wanted to have these kind of convos, I'd hang out in front of a junior high school.  Ooops...is it time for a age/sex check????  Sportz Assassin:   30/m/Cincinnati. 

I then moved onto the message boards, since they were chat rooms with (a) a bit more rules, (b) someone watching over them and (c) for the most part, they stayed on task.  Not anymore.  There really isn't any rules...they've put most boards on the honor system and very rarely are they talking about the subject matter of the board.  Nearly every sports message board is Fans vs Haters.  As a Laker fan, I saw this first hand two years ago as the board turned into sesspool of redundant spewing of "I hate your team" takes. 

The beauty is that blogging was brewing in the AOL community.  I got hooked quick and two years later, I'm still here.  And I'm not going anywhere, to be honest, even though I'm sure I can take my blog elsewhere and still create a good readership [my wife manages a blog thru a different site and does very well].  And, to be honest, this whole ad deal isn't a big issue with me at all.  However, it does bother me that various ads are chosen to be on my blog without my consent.  I don't bank at Bank Of America....so why should I advertise for them?  I don't stay at a Best Western. 

I understand the complaints from above bloggers.  My hard work which I take pride in is being used to peddle wares.  I know for a fact that my blog is one of the most viewed in AOL Sports that the adverising on my blog my get more "hits" because of it.  So I write good content so that Bank Of America gets more ad time and that AOL makes a bit more cheese. 

So, to be fair....I will also take time to advertise for free myself.  Whatever service or what-not that I used that day may get my gratis [ampering.

This entry was brought to you by HOLLYWOOD VIDEO!

Change sucks.  No one likes it.  And no one likes when "the man" comes in a screws with a good thing.  However, as long [and this isn't a guarantee] as these ads do not attempt to (a) censor me or (b) decide what topics I can place on my blog....I really don't see a massive deal.  But if there comes a time when I get a "you can't put a story about cheerleaders making out in a bathroom because Jim's Oyster Shack doesn't want to be associated with sponsoring such scandal"....then we got a problem.