Calacanis: people who don’t like RSS advertising are freaks
Weblogs Inc’s Jason Calacanis has stated that people who don’t like RSS advertising in full feeds are freaks in an interesting interview with Jen from Jensense.
The interview covers a wide range of contextual advertising questions, of which readers will find of value, but its Calacanis’ attack on those opposed to RSS advertising, such as blog god Dave Winer and a couple of other members of the “A-List”, the same list that Calacanis’ is trying to reform this week with the Blog 500 competition, that is sure to raise eyebrows.
To quote Calacanis:
“Like three folks were upset about RSS ads. Now, we have millions of people coming to our sites every month so we’re not going to stop the revenue for three freaks who want free content without advertising….So, it’s important that when you’re running a business you ignore the freaks and listen to the real fans. Real fans of the site understand you need to make money in order to produce free content, and those real fans even visit the advertisers and buy their products knowing that it will support the product they love.”
So, you can’t really be critical of Jason’t pro-ads statement when your own site is completely plastered with ads. Even though you just present the “facts,” there’s a not quite subtle hint of disapproval in your post. You should cheer him on!
Elliot
I must be having a bad writing day, I’m on Calcanis’ side, even if I dont do RSS advertising yet. The point I was making is the name calling without disclosing who it was, when we all really know who it’s most likely aimed at. I’m not getting into an argument about name calling today, but again, I’m on Calcanis’ side on RSS advertising. Why should he give away free content without return!
I’m still sitting the fence on this one. Mr RSS, Rok Hrastnik, says advertising is not in the DNA of RSS. You’ve mentioned Dave Winer. But full feeds do reduce your page views substantially. A lot of new technology does that too, like Ajax, as Jason has also mentioned. What’s that about the customer (user) is always right?
“Why should he give away free content without return!”
Excuse me for being technical, but that’s not free content: The user pays for the content by accepting the advertising that comes with it. And Calancanis gets paid by the advertiser.
And it’s common knowledge that only very few disgruntled customers complain, most of them just quietly go shopping somewhere else.