Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, December 5th, 2008 - 46 comments
Categories: blogs -
Tags: the standard
What would you guys think about us taking on advertising?
A few months ago, I saw Public Address’s advertising rates card and it turns out there’s a fair, but not by any means huge, amount of money in advertising for a blog of our size. Now, we wouldn’t want that money for its own sake – we didn’t start this to make money and, frankly, the amount we’re talking about would barely cover Irish’s whiskey bill. But, we’ve been thinking that there are useful things we could do with a bit of cash. For starters, we could take the burden of funding the server, which has gone from $10 a month to about $170, off Lynn. We could chuck the rest in a fund for leftwing projects – provide some money or materials for a protest here, print off some flyers there, maybe a third party campaign next election, that kind of thing.
Now, we are really concious that we, the writers, are only half the reason this blog has worked. The other half is you, dear reader (and, especially, you commentators). This forum as much yours as it is ours. So, we wouldn’t want to go and do this without talking to youse about it first.
I know some people object to ads and will not like us taking them on principle, and I understand that position. But I think of the useful things we could do with that money and, to me, that is the clincher. I wouldn’t object to the Greens or Labour having a billboard on their buildings either, because the money is going to a good cause.
Anyway, let us know what you think. And if you’ve any other ideas for a brighter future for The Standard in 2009, let us know.
[Someone asked in comments whether the original version of The Standard ran ads. The answer is 'yes'. Click for a larger version. Ah the good old days. a_y_b]
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why not – if there is a funding shortfall, the money has to come from somewhere
If The Standard runs ads they won’t be of any concern to me (I’ve got a good Firefox plugin which deals to them) however if it’s money you need have you considered opening a Paypal account and accepting donations? I know I would throw in a tenner for the valuable service you provide to the New Zealand political landscape.
If you do place ads on The Standard you may want to consider situations that could put you at risk with your advertisers. We all know the classic example of the blog that focused exclusively on posting filth (in my opinion), and subsequently lost it’s NZ advertisers. While nobody would ever try to place The Standard at such low levels the question on my mind is whether you would not post something that you knew would put you at odds with your advertisers.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…..the slippery slope I see. Take an advert and sooner or later youll piss them off with some comment and then comes the real crunch………..
You either soften your attitude on the particular subject that upset them – or lose the advert. Commercial reality.
And youll only be getting a pretty limited group of potential customers (welfare addicts, ex government MP’s, counsellors, etc) and they have a habbit of NEVER forgetting -so you might be geting into dangerous waters.
However if your previous sources are drying up……………………
You guys should run, there is nothing wrong with that? Or maybe do what the democratic underground (the DU) does, and have a donation drive.
All the lefties that comment here could donate their tax cuts to keep the site going. That is, assuming you actually work and pay taxes.
mike et al:
Nope – I’m still paying for it as I always have done for when it needs to be paid for. But it does cost to run the site currently ~160+GST per month. But I have no more room to optimize the site and when it hits election week levels again (probably about May looking at last years profile), it will start running slow as.
This is the first real chance that we’ve had to look ahead since we launched the prototype site last august. This is a long-term project. Hell – the original intent was to get this thing viable before the next election. It kind of took off on us.
What we’re looking at is the probable growth curves. At this point we have done 2066 published posts and over 69k comments (after the spam and banned are removed – they’d have at least been doubled it before we got them under control and out of the database).
This is in 14 months, while our second favourite (and my favourite) party was in government – which is a bit limiting for a blog. I’d expect that with a nice fat juicy target for comment like the NACT government that this partizan’s blog will grow even faster. As it is the comments and posts are steadily increasing (and we still get complaints about lack of posts). Our average page views have been increasing by over 5% per month and haven’t fallen back far since the election spike.
You have to remember that the next step on the server side will probably double the money costs which starts to hurt my budget a bit. Essentially I can’t justify that easily – the last cost double I justified by giving up smoking.
I and probably the others would also like some more space for other web projects. This seems like a logical next step. The alternatives are to set up voluntary payments or look for sponsors. Advertising looks like the simplest, least intrusive, and least likely to cause editorial issues.
Whatever we do, then it will be done with the same level of discrimination that the style police (a_y_b) allow me to get away with – been known to edit my css because it hurts the eyes (Mac people are SO fussy).
Lynn
BTW: Rex – I just came back from having a beer with the guy at Galbraiths…. I’m (usually) nice about people who buy me a beer.
“Akismet has protected your site from 82,720 spam comments already, but there’s nothing in your spam queue at the moment.”
Yep there is a lot of real crap in the net.. Don’t see much of anymore because of Akismet. Gone are the days of 50 or so in the comments queue in the morning. I’d like to help pay them as well.
Lynn you shameless class traitor, you. Accepting the filthy coin of the capitalist oppressor again?! Off to the re-education camp with you, m’boy.
Tane: Yeah, we thought about that but didn’t like the idea of being accountable to anyone…
Don’t flinch now brothers and sisters: you’ve set The Standard, assume the position and shoulder arms! Spare a thought for the bones you stand on who enjoyed the following wee ditty and be accountable only to them. And let the rest of us contribute (Lynn, you kicked nicotine for the cause – I’m in awe…greater love hath no man than this…..)
The people’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts blood dyed its every fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high. (chorus)
Within its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.
It waved above our infant might,
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow,
We must not change its colour now.
It well recalls the triumphs past,
It gives the hope of peace at last;
The banner bright, the symbol plain,
Of human right and human gain.
Brilliant as long as the advertisers cannot dictate editorial content – and if you can make enough extra how about developing a left-wing radio station to counter the crap that parades as balance at the moment. Am sick of hearing the likes of Smith, Holmes, Williams, Russell, Jackson, Tamehere, and even Jim Mora’s panel generally has right to extreme right wingers.
ak: Actually not quite. But I’m getting close again.
I was clean for a couple of months. However I relapsed during the campaign. I’d neglected to get rid of the linkage between smoking and programming at home. So when I started to seriously do some work on campaigning tools during the weekends and evenings, I found I couldn’t code there and I had to get the code out in time for the campaigning. So I gave up fro the blog and relapsed for the election campaign – see what politics does to you.
At present I’m back down to a couple of rollies per day and about to shift back on to the patches. The target date for clean is the 23rd of December. That is when my namesake will get back from her sinking island and seriously start to get into harassment.
But I used to smoke a pack every other day, and a lot more when the code got difficult when I was programming at home. The savings are quite extensive, (and dropped into a new addiction – blogging).
BTW: QuitLine are awesome