Well, the trend is picking up. First, Volker has added Google ads, and now Rocky has followed suit. While everybody has to make their own decisions on how to make a buck, I pledge to keep this site commercial free [except of course for the commercials for the truly amazing and powerful Midas Rich Text LSX, and our astounding COEX! Links, and any other products we sell that are guaranteed to change your life].
Seriously, while I do understand that everybody has a right to their own way of handling their site, I also do have trouble with the insidious pervasiveness of advertising. It is hard to turn around without seeing another way that advertising has managed to insert itself into our lives. It used to be that public TV really didn't have ads, but now they have them as well, even if they are somewhat more classy and subtle. The web is obviously filled with advertisements, but I am always turned off when I go to a site for a company and find ads for other products, etc. Maybe others are simply more inured to the whole issue, since I watch very little television and avoid most radio stations to avoid the incessant advertising. Thus far, books have mostly been immune, so I read a lot.
Of course, aside from my personal dislike for ads, there is the additional issue of negative advertising. If I am a potential client, might I assume that somebody who needs to put advertising on their site to pay for it must be pretty small potatoes in the business world. It is not exactly expensive to run a website, and if a consultant can't pay for that without advertising, how good can they be?. This may well not be accurate, as I know Rocky does quite well, for example, but that is an impression I could get as a client. I would think that the positive advertising of selling LotusGeek t-shirts and Duffbert and Joe Litton's TeamTSG line of apparel (other than the thong) would be far more positive ways to generate income and good will than filling one's site with ads for other companies. But what do I know? Copyright © 2004 Genii Software Ltd.