Ads on Ask a Ninja

July 6, 2006 No Comments

I guess there has been a lot of complaints about the small, little, nothing ads on Ask a Ninja:

There’s been a lot of guff about ‘selling out’ over the 13 second advertisement in this week’s episode.

13 seconds out of almost 5 minutes.

Or 4.5% of the total episode.

You’ve got to be kidding me. This sort of stuff makes me sick. The lack of respect that is being shown for the time that they put into the show. It’s crazy! I left them a comment:

Hey,

I’m a big fan of the show. I run a network of websites and most of our revenue comes from advertising. People don’t seem to understand that quality websites (or podcasts or video blogs or whatever) take time. It’s a full time job, it’s my life. My goal in life isn’t to live with my parents or to simply pay my bandwidth bill and nor should it be yours. I want to be wealthy. Who doesn’t? But, I want to do it in the right way. I don’t serve any popups (not that popups are bad, but they don’t fit on my network) and I work hard to maintain a balance between user experience and revenue generation. And you guys are doing the same. You’ve created a great thing here and I want to see you both be wealthy one day because of it (not necessarily Ask a Ninja directly, but your endeavors).

Another thing that not everyone understands is that when Ask a Ninja (and related ventures, etc.) are making you guys the money that you need to accomplish your goals in life, that means a better program because more time can be dedicated to it. So, when you don’t have to go to work at a “real job” or something like that (not sure if you do), you can focus completely on these ventures and they should, in turn, improve. Not that they need to – I love the show.

In any case, I have absolutely no problems with the ads you have. In fact, you could use more. What you have now is like nothing and I’d like to see you have more. I’ll keep watching. Anyone who doesn’t keep watching is really being unreasonable, I feel, and just doesn’t get it. I’m going to buy a t-shirt sometime, as well.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks,

Patrick

Patrick O'Keefe

Managing online communities since 2000, I publish a collective of websites known as the iFroggy Network. I wrote the book Managing Online Forums and, as a public speaker, have presented for organizations like CNN, institutions like Australian National University and conferences like SXSW. More about me.

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