Daring Fireball Display Ads
What I finally decided was the most obvious replacement possible: selling Deck-like ads on my own, directly to advertisers, much like I do with the weekly feed sponsorships.
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For sponsors, you get to be the only graphical ad on the page each time your ad is shown. And given DF’s visual style, most of the time the ad will be the only graphical element on the entire page other than the DF logo mark, and the only color on the page other than good old #4a525a slate gray. The ads are relatively small, but I am confident they are more noticeable in a non-objectionable way than ads on just about any other website in the world. The ads on Daring Fireball stand out without being the least bit obtrusive. That’s the sweet spot for ads, in my opinion.
For readers, these are ads that, again, are visually unobjectionable, and which offer the most privacy you could hope for. Not only is there no tracking involved, there is no JavaScript involved.
I wish this sort of approach—opting out of the arms race—could work for more sites. It’s really a win-win. There are some other sites that have good content but which I specifically avoid because they’re junked up with ads. So I miss their content unless someone specifically directs me to an article, and they miss my fractional eyeballs.
Previously: The Deck Shuts Down.
