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simply running ads themselves, targeted at their own viewers' likely interests, without relying on third party middlemen One minor point here - speaking as bot

simply running ads themselves, targeted at their own viewers' likely interests, without relying on third party middlemen One minor point here - speaking as both an advertising guy and someone who runs content-based websites, this is much harder than it may appear. I qualify as at least a professional if not an expert in making money off website space, and I still frequently find it difficult to beat (intelligently set up) Google Adsense for raw CPM. For someone with no experience or interest in making money directly off advertising space, it'll be much harder, and I'd expect most people trying this to take a pretty significant revenue loss in the short term. That may reverse itself in the long term - there are big advantages to running your own ads if you're prepared to put the time in - but the initial income slump will be painful.

Silhouette 14y ago
I still frequently find it difficult to beat (intelligently set up) Google Adsense for raw CPM. Fair enough, but I think the big question is absolute rather than relative: do you still make enough handling ads directly to be financially viable? For someone with no experience or interest in making money directly off advertising space, it'll be much harder, and I'd expect most people trying this to take a pretty significant revenue loss in the short term. I'm genuinely curious about how many sites these days are small enough that they're basically amateur operations, yet make significant revenues from the ad networks (which is obviously a prerequisite for making significant revenue losses if they have to move to another funding model). I just don't see it. Ad revenues have been falling like a stone since forever, so these days low-traffic personal sites are lucky to even cover their hosting costs, never mind making any real money. Aren't most sites with enough traffic to make serious money via the ad networks effectively professional sites being run as businesses already? That may reverse itself in the long term - there are big advantages to running your own ads if you're prepared to put the time in - but the initial income slump will be painful. I think that's the key thing, really. This is a long game, and fear of change because it will be awkward for some people in the short term generally leads to stagnation and never discovering ways of doing things that might be better for (almost) everyone after even a brief period of adjustment.
- thenomad 14y ago
  I can make enough money to cover costs selling ads direct - however, I know a lot about making money with advertising. effectively professional sites being run as businesses already The key issue here is that "professional" != "expert affiliate marketer" or "direct ad salesman". It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. This is very non-obvious stuff that takes a lot of time, energy and money to learn, and most people running websites - professional or amateur - do not know.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. I don't doubt it, I just question how many of those people are doing that. How many top notch professional journalists are really trying to make money from their writing by running their own independent site funded by the likes of Google Ads? I'm a pretty avid surfer and have quite a diverse range of hobbies and professional interests, and I honestly can't think of a single site I've visited any time recently, in either a personal or professional capacity, that would fall into that category. Obviously I might be an outlier, but it does seem unlikely in this case.
    - thenomad 14y ago
      I think you may be being sidetracked by the word "journalist" here - I'm using it to refer to anyone with the skills to write good content, not just print/TV journalists. Are you sure that on all of the surfing sites you've visited, there's at least one person who has the very specific and rare skills I've mentioned? I'd be extremely surprised if that was the case. And if they don't have those skills, and the ad networks go away or divide their revenues by three, to quote the meme, they're going to have a bad time.

Silhouette 14y ago

I still frequently find it difficult to beat (intelligently set up) Google Adsense for raw CPM. Fair enough, but I think the big question is absolute rather than relative: do you still make enough handling ads directly to be financially viable? For someone with no experience or interest in making money directly off advertising space, it'll be much harder, and I'd expect most people trying this to take a pretty significant revenue loss in the short term. I'm genuinely curious about how many sites these days are small enough that they're basically amateur operations, yet make significant revenues from the ad networks (which is obviously a prerequisite for making significant revenue losses if they have to move to another funding model). I just don't see it. Ad revenues have been falling like a stone since forever, so these days low-traffic personal sites are lucky to even cover their hosting costs, never mind making any real money. Aren't most sites with enough traffic to make serious money via the ad networks effectively professional sites being run as businesses already? That may reverse itself in the long term - there are big advantages to running your own ads if you're prepared to put the time in - but the initial income slump will be painful. I think that's the key thing, really. This is a long game, and fear of change because it will be awkward for some people in the short term generally leads to stagnation and never discovering ways of doing things that might be better for (almost) everyone after even a brief period of adjustment.

thenomad 14y ago
I can make enough money to cover costs selling ads direct - however, I know a lot about making money with advertising. effectively professional sites being run as businesses already The key issue here is that "professional" != "expert affiliate marketer" or "direct ad salesman". It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. This is very non-obvious stuff that takes a lot of time, energy and money to learn, and most people running websites - professional or amateur - do not know.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. I don't doubt it, I just question how many of those people are doing that. How many top notch professional journalists are really trying to make money from their writing by running their own independent site funded by the likes of Google Ads? I'm a pretty avid surfer and have quite a diverse range of hobbies and professional interests, and I honestly can't think of a single site I've visited any time recently, in either a personal or professional capacity, that would fall into that category. Obviously I might be an outlier, but it does seem unlikely in this case.
  - thenomad 14y ago
    I think you may be being sidetracked by the word "journalist" here - I'm using it to refer to anyone with the skills to write good content, not just print/TV journalists. Are you sure that on all of the surfing sites you've visited, there's at least one person who has the very specific and rare skills I've mentioned? I'd be extremely surprised if that was the case. And if they don't have those skills, and the ad networks go away or divide their revenues by three, to quote the meme, they're going to have a bad time.