Matt Haughey makes a case against Adsense for Feeds:

You can be fairly sure that every single person subscribed to your feed is a daily reader and it’s not likely random searchers would add your feed. The people reading your feed are using a feed because they don’t want to miss a single word you’re saying. They’re not just fans reading your site, they’re more die-hard than that.

Who would you subject to advertising, if you had a say in the matter: random visitors or your biggest fans?

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.

With the help of Simple RSS Customizations, I’ve now updated Beasts to have fulltext RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom 0.3 feeds, with HTML. Though honestly I’d like to settle on one feed eventually, preferably Atom 1.0. I’ve just got to get through the book first.

I’ve also turned on comments for unregistered, non-TypeKey users.

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.

This could be big:

AdSense for feeds is a program that enables publishers to place relevant ads in the feeds they syndicate. Google technology understands the nuances of language, and places ads that are closely matched (or “targeted”) to the content next to which they appear.

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.

my new favorite thing: Feedster (RSS Search Engine)

I speculated at the end of 2023 that the initial slowness in my schedule may have had less to do with the inclement weather and more with “my lack of any regular clients. With the latter now in place, it’ll be interesting to see how the early part of 2024 plays out.” Well, the year started out both rainy and slow, but when the clouds parted and people emerged from their post-holiday hibernation, my theory proved prescient. Of the ten clients with whom I worked in January and February, only three were new.

Continue Reading…