yet another post about ads

May 9, 2008 at 5:34 pm · Filed under bubble, dot com, speculation, wank

Andrew on why the long-promised adsense upgrade remains vapourware.

Here’s what I think the basic problem is. Not all wordpress.com blogs are equal. A personal blog by a housewife or student is in an entirely different league from icanhascheezburger or stuff white people like, and ad revenues will vary accordingly. Automattic are not going to launch any feature which leads to them losing money, therefore the cost of the annual upgrade must equal (and preferably exceed) the annual revenue from the blog. But how do they know the annual revenue? And how do they know what it’s going to be in the future? Your bumpalong bogstandard blog could take off like a rocket overnight. An average figure is going to be far in excess of what the people in the long tail are generating (or willing to pay for), and far below what the handful on the threshold of VIP status can bring in. Pitch it too high and nobody’s going to bother paying up, pitch it too low and you risk losing out. Charging everyone different amounts is an impractical adminstrative nightmare.

On the other hand, the current system is working pretty well for them. People don’t see ads on their own blogs, aren’t informed about them when they sign up, and can blog for months and years in blissful ignorance of their existence. Even if they do leave when they twig what’s going on, Automattic have still profited from the period when they were unaware. In any case, they’re less likely to leave than to stick around grumbling at intervals and waiting for the vapourware upgrade. Far easier just to keep things the way they are and claim to be looking into solutions whenever anybody asks. It ain’t broke. Why fix it?

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