Comments on: Killing Ads in RSS Feeds in NetNewsWire

By: Robert Ballantyne

Robert Ballantyne — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:41:58 +0000

I found this page as part of a search because I was horrified to find that TidBITS, with their new interface, are including ads in their RSS feed.

TidBITS has been one of my regular stops for well over a decade. Any article that is of interest gets a click and I go to the site. I am delighted that the folks who advertise on the site are paying the bills.

But my RSS reader (NetNewsWire) is my main source of ALL news. This is important to me. I no longer have lumber from the newspaper companies arriving at my door. I seldom see broadcast news (the family was happy to disconnect the cable as long as we have ADSL) and now don’t want it.

I am always far ahead of my friends and business associates in knowing what is interesting today in the subjects that are special to me and in general news.

This works because I can scan lots of the copy in many feeds quickly.

Ads are not a little distraction… they are huge.

For now, ads are deal-breakers. If I can obtain similar info elsewhere (or even if I cannot), I will unsubscribe to any feed that shows ads. Sorry TidBITS.

I may try the workaround suggested here, but I want to make it clear that this is not a trivial matter to me.

By: slowe

slowe — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:30:45 +0000

Dave,

I understand, respect, and accept the need for site owners/maintainers to earn money to support themselves and, as I said in the article, I generally end up visiting sites in my feed list (even when the sites provide a full feed) to add comments, review others’ comments, etc., so ads still get viewed. Personally, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually clicked a web ad in the last year or two, but that’s just me. I would rather sites fall back to excerpt-only feeds than provide ads in the feed, but again that’s just me. I expect to see ads on a web page, and that’s fine; I don’t expect to see ads in RSS feeds.

Thanks for your feedback!

By: Dave Thommas

Dave Thommas — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:30:14 +0000

I disagree, some sites need to make money to continue their service so ads are a must. Of course you don’t want to make ads in your face all the time but it is a fact of life. I know you have a site here and you do not have ads but your site it not your method of income. For me it is and it is important for me to display my ads and have people click on them. The goal is to make sure the site is not about ads but content and then the ads, no matter how many, are just there second to the conent. So, I disagree… I think there is nothing wrong with ads in rss feeds as if the feed is good enough to be looked at then it is worth getting paid for the effort. If not then why woudl you have the feed is your list to begin with….

but, I respect your comments too.