Saturday, November 22, 2003
Site Updates: New Navigation and Text-Based Advertising
Posted by Jason Dunn in "UPDATE" @ 03:00 PM
Pocket PC Thoughts, like any good Web site, continues to evolve - and we always hope it's a good evolution, not a devolution. ;-)
First up, we've changed our shopping navigation a little - now we have three choices for shopping: hardware (Tek 'n Toys), software (Handango), and "The Mall" will be a zone where we'll have all sorts of goodies for sale, including the much-coveted Pocket PC Thoughts micro light, some other PPCT goodies, and affiliate links for you to use when buying Vaja cases, etc. We hope that when you need to buy hardware and software for your Pocket PC, you'll support us by using these links. Thank you! :-)
The other update is an experiment with a new type of advertising. First off, it's not spyware or anything that is on your computer that is causing the text link you see above in the screen shot (thanks Lurch!) - it's a Javascript function that dynamically scans the text on a page, then creates in-line text links based on the content. Right now you can only find it on reviews. You can see what it looks like in action - notice the word "software" is underlined. When you hover over that word, a small text blocks hovers over it telling you what the ad is about. When you click that hyperlinked word, it launches a new browser window, and Pocket PC Thoughts makes a small amount of money. Note that in this case, only clicks count - we don't get paid for showing the ad, only when you click on it. I like this type of ad, because it's contextual, relevant, and low-key. I'd like to know what the rest of you think about it.
So why are we doing it? You've all probably noticed the sheer number of times that the muvee banner loads, and as much as I like the program, when you see that banner it means that not only do we not have any paying advertising of our own to load, it also means that Tribal Fusion doesn't have anything for us either. While I'm deeply thankful for the support that our regular advertisers have shown us, the truth is there's not that many of them, so we're trying out this new system to see if it will help drive some income for the site. No, we're not in danger of shutting down, but a regular income stream that we can rely on would be very helpful.
Astute readers will also have noticed we've launched Google Adsense as well - this is another "pay per click" type of advertising effort.
I know there's a lot of confusion and misinformation about online advertising, and what it means when you block ads on a site, so I'll do up a little educational piece on this in the coming weeks.
UPDATE: Subscribers now have the ability to turn off these text ads if they wish.
First up, we've changed our shopping navigation a little - now we have three choices for shopping: hardware (Tek 'n Toys), software (Handango), and "The Mall" will be a zone where we'll have all sorts of goodies for sale, including the much-coveted Pocket PC Thoughts micro light, some other PPCT goodies, and affiliate links for you to use when buying Vaja cases, etc. We hope that when you need to buy hardware and software for your Pocket PC, you'll support us by using these links. Thank you! :-)
The other update is an experiment with a new type of advertising. First off, it's not spyware or anything that is on your computer that is causing the text link you see above in the screen shot (thanks Lurch!) - it's a Javascript function that dynamically scans the text on a page, then creates in-line text links based on the content. Right now you can only find it on reviews. You can see what it looks like in action - notice the word "software" is underlined. When you hover over that word, a small text blocks hovers over it telling you what the ad is about. When you click that hyperlinked word, it launches a new browser window, and Pocket PC Thoughts makes a small amount of money. Note that in this case, only clicks count - we don't get paid for showing the ad, only when you click on it. I like this type of ad, because it's contextual, relevant, and low-key. I'd like to know what the rest of you think about it.
So why are we doing it? You've all probably noticed the sheer number of times that the muvee banner loads, and as much as I like the program, when you see that banner it means that not only do we not have any paying advertising of our own to load, it also means that Tribal Fusion doesn't have anything for us either. While I'm deeply thankful for the support that our regular advertisers have shown us, the truth is there's not that many of them, so we're trying out this new system to see if it will help drive some income for the site. No, we're not in danger of shutting down, but a regular income stream that we can rely on would be very helpful.
Astute readers will also have noticed we've launched Google Adsense as well - this is another "pay per click" type of advertising effort.
I know there's a lot of confusion and misinformation about online advertising, and what it means when you block ads on a site, so I'll do up a little educational piece on this in the coming weeks.
UPDATE: Subscribers now have the ability to turn off these text ads if they wish.
