January 16, 2005
New 'Communique' Advertising Policy Coming Soon
A Little Advance Notice For Interested Parties
Those few readers who may have for some reason clicked through to our advertising page will have noticed that we will soon be taking ads on this site again, and currently are trying to work out the details of our overall policies and rates.
For an understanding of just where we're at in trying to make those determinations, click through to read the details. You'll see, among other things, that we're faced with a dilemma regarding ad pricing.
Right now we just wanted to make sure we provided some notice that this is on its way at all. When our policies and rates are in place, and when we actually have advertisers, we will be removing our participation in Google Adsense.
Literally in its place -- meaning prominently-located at the top of the page -- will be a banner ad of the traditional 468x60 variety. Currently, the intent is for this banner to be a "run of site" ad, meaning it will display on every page of Portland Communique.
In addition, where we currently have some textual notes from us on the left- and right-hand sides of the page, we will be displaying button ads of either 120x90 or 120x60 in size. Unlike the top-of-site banner ad, these ads (like the current textual notes) will be fixed in place and therefore will not scroll off the screen when a reader pages down.
Each ad type has its advantages and disadvantages, which we believe for the most part cancel each other out. On the one hand, the banner ad will be one of the first things a reader sees, right there at the top any any given page, below our own logo, but it will scroll off-screen when the reader pages down. On the other hand, the button ads will not be one of the first things a reader sees, off to either side, but they will not scroll off-screen when the reader pages down.
As such, both types of ads likely will share more or less (if not exactly) the same rate, once we determine what the Hell that rate is going to be.
All ads will be on a timed basis, not on a cost-per-impression basis. This is consistent with how our previous advertisements worked when we were making use of Blogads (we are switching to an in-house adserver package). In other words, advertisers will be able to purchase ads for a predetermined length of time -- likely either a week, two weeks, or a month.
We have any number of things which will need working out, but now that we're halfway through January, we thought we should post an item expressly communicating to our readers (and any potential advertisers) where the process stands currently.
Depending on how we end up pricing the ads, featuring advertising of the variety described above may close the gap between what we currently know our monthly income is going to be and what we need to keep publishing Portland Communique. So if you know, for example, any local businesses which you think might benefit from being exposed to our readership base (not to refer to you all in such clinical terms or anything), please let them know that we are working on the answers we need to get our policies into place.
Comments (5)
The One True b!X on 16 Jan 2005
Yes, it appears there is a problem with the "fixed" elements actually behaving in a fixed manner under IE, which as always has revealed itself to be written by a software company that doesn't concern itself with Web standards.
I'm working on a solution (there are a couple of different approaches apparently), one of which you can test if you are using IE by going to this page and seeing if anything behaves differently than what you see on the page you are viewing right now.
The One True b!X on 16 Jan 2005
FYI, y'all might also notice that I'm testing out a "live comment preview" feature, which allows commenters to see, well, a preview of their comment as they type it. This means no more having to hit the "Preview" button to see how you comment looks, and also means you will be able to see if any of your HTML tags were not properly closed off.
Feel free to comment on this feature here if there are any questions or comments.
The One True b!X on 16 Jan 2005
For what it's worth, every single hack/fix we've found for the fact that IE continues to refuse to adopt the standard of "position: fixed" in its implentation of CSS apepars to either be so bloated and cumbersome it's not worth trying to implement, or works via Javascript and reportedly creates some jerkiness.
Which likely means the latter will be the solution, if despite the jerkiness it does at least manage to put various page elements in the right places.
allehseya on 17 Jan 2005
Yep. All of the above (and some additional pet-peeves) makes me all the more nostalgic for your old layout.
It was, generally speaking, easier to navigate. An archival side bar for recent articles is very convenient, articles dont get lost in time as quickly....and I like to know at a glance what readers are commenting and responding to....but these are small inconveniences and wishful thinking for a picky, spoiled reader -- in light of the bigger picture you paint, it's worth it for the content you provide.
The One True b!X on 18 Jan 2005
I must say, the fact that IE refuses to support the CSS standard of "position: fixed" leads me to despise Microsoft even more, because this deficiency in essence is going to lose me money. Because I'm not going to be able to have sidebar ads fixed in place, I'm going to have to charge less for those ads than I intended.
Fuck you, Microsoft.