May 7th, 2007
by NathanUser Revolt!
9 out of 10 doctors agree, the Newshutch ad placement sucks.
Clearly the main problem is that it takes up a lot of real estate that can’t be reclaimed by scrolling. After using Newshutch today I started to feel the same pain as everyone else. Your eyes scan the bottom of what you’re scrolling, but that static chunk stops you like a brick wall. The result is tension and awkwardness with how your eyes flow over the page.
We did test this before rolling it out, but we fell into the gap between testing a feature and really living with it. Newshutch’s strength is readability; anything that hinders readability must go.
That being said, we’d like to offset our hosting costs. Having two dedicated boxes isn’t cheap. Here are some questions we’d like you the users to help us with:
- Does anybody have experience running an app like Newshutch on a shared grid host like Media Temple grid server or Joyent Accelerator? Our bandwidth and storage needs are small. Newshutch’s overhead is in CPU cycles for parsing feeds and reading/writing them to the database.
- What about charging for an ad free version? What fee structure would be appropriate?
- What if we licensed customized versions of Newshutch?
- Doug and Nathan are always for hire. With more contract work we wouldn’t feel the pinch of hosting costs as much.
- Assuming that ads are a must, where should they go? Here are some options others have come up with:
- In between every nth post, and at the end of a post with fewer unread items. Does anyone think it’s weird to drop our own ads in between the posts of a publisher’s feed?
- Under the feed list on the left. The problem with this is that any “skyscraper” style ad wouldn’t work in “scroll panes independently” mode.
- Only on the “welcome” page. The problem with this is that advertisers won’t pay as much for this kind of placement.
- At the top of the page. I’d rather not, any opinions?
In the short term we’ll kill the big banner to free up some space so everyone can breathe again. Longer term we’ll take your ideas on how we can make ads not suck or do without them.
May 7th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I would consider paying $5/month. There are a lot of other options out there, but none as clean and straight-forward as Newshutch. I’d pay for that!
I would vote for putting an ad after every nth post. If it’s at the bottom of the feed list, it wouldn’t ever get seen.
May 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I’ve got some experience running clustered mongrels on an Accelerator. Do you ask because the move to that kind of environment would be cheaper than your current hosting?
May 7th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Thomas, except for Joyent’s highest end Accelerator plans, yes it would be cheaper. How has it worked for you? Do you have any web apps that are CPU or DB read/write intensive?
May 7th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
+1 for $5/mo paid account.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I think you guys aren’t thinking outside the box.
Have you asked MT or Joyent or EngineYard (or any Rails host for that matter) for reduced hosting in exchange for a link (I certainly won’t care if there is a small link that said “hosted by. . .”.
You’ll get a much bigger revolt if you ask everyone to pay a fee.
Why not toss up a donations plea (pledgie?)?
Of your options, I’d vote for your own ads inserted at the end of feeds.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
How about having a skyscraper style ad on the far right of the page? It’ll not hinder readability (not in the main flow of the page), and it’ll be clearly visible so you can charge a decent amount for it.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I run Quizlet,com on an upper-end Joyent Accelerator - and I can definitely vouch that it’s solid. My homepage, with all of Joyent’s default settings (including mysql caching), renders at about 50ms. Quizlet isn’t terribly CPU intensive, but it does handle a lot of DB read/write with its more interactive features. I’m fairly certain that your requirements are stricter than mine. My db has just reached 3m rows, without breaking a sweat on 50k pageviews/day.
You could probably get Sun’s Startup Essentials 25% off discount via Joyent - they just announced it on their Joyeur blog.
If you’d like to discuss it further, I can’t say I’m an expert but I’d be happy to answer questions. My email is in this comment and my AIM is QuizletSupport.
Also, I’d be happy to donate. If it were to go subscription-based, I’d rather pay per year - $30-40/year or something. The ads were slightly bothersome, but I’m somewhat in the same position of experimenting with ads, so I can appreciate the problem. Good luck!
May 7th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I’m down with $5 a month.
As for ad positioning, I say a wide banner across the top.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I used to pay $5/month for a news reader before I came upon Newshutch so that option is not a problem here. Glad to hear the ad is going though. I’ve been using Google Reader the last couple of days and while it’s great, I much prefer how Newshutch handles read feeds. I agree with one of the above posters though…do a three column layout, and have the far right be a skyscraper. It’s neat, out of the way, and offers good ad space so everyone wins.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
How many impressions/page views does NewsHutch get per day?
May 7th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
I would be willing to pay for a “Pro” version of Newshutch, I love this app and I cannot find another one like it! Nothing else is a cleanly designed!
May 8th, 2007 at 1:29 am
I would be willing to pay 5 USD/month or optionally 45 USD/year for Newshutch Pro. But then I would expect more features than no advertisement too!
I have no good suggestions on where the ads could fit in. The subscribe-to-our-advertisor units works great. They do need a better placement though. (Does not work with small fonts, and that background color.) However the 468×60 unit would be blocked pretty soon, I feel. I feel it is unnessesary for my feed reading experience, and therefor I would block it. Either with my browser or in my mind.
May 8th, 2007 at 1:30 am
(And yea, Newshutch strenght is indeed readability.)
May 8th, 2007 at 2:12 am
As soon as I saw the new ad placement I started looking for the subscribe button so that I could get rid of them. I guess that means that I am more than happy to pay for an uncluttered Newshutch service.
The suggestion above of $5 a month seemed a bit much for me, but I then realised that I probably use this site more than any other on the web (as it’s always open in my browser, always updating my feeds), so it seems a none too bad deal (especially as $5 is only about 50p for us Brits these days
)
May 8th, 2007 at 3:34 am
Semms to me, you have the perfect place for a 336 x 280 px Large Rectangle (http://www.iab.net/standards/adunits.asp) just below the scrollable feed-list (left side). I did not mind the ad that much and I would even mind it less below the feed list.
Keep up the great work!
May 8th, 2007 at 4:31 am
So glad that banner ad has gone.
I agree with the $5 a month subscription idea.
May 8th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I agree with the overall sentiment that the ads detract greatly from the user experience. I don’t even like the small “quotations” ad currently displayed at the bottom of the page. It really takes away from the simplicity and clean lines of Newshutch and still uses valuable space. It seems that any ad ought not to be in the “direct path” of the reading column, but would be better placed under the feed column. What about ads on the welcome page and also a “donations” link at the top of the page with your other links? I really like Newshutch, and any ads below the news items is just too “cheesy”, in my opinion. That being said, I realize you have to cover your costs and nothing’s “free”. Newshutch is really a standout product in the vast array of RSS reader options, and I for one would hate to see it marred with ads.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Two words: text ads. Huge graphic image ads are unbelievably distracting, especially since the entire rest of the site is text only. Also, please don’t forget those of us that read Newshutch via a relatively low resolution mobile phone. I would vote for a well identified simple text ad after every nth post, or before the feed entries (at the top).
Google works well with text only ads, and since they are context sensitive as well, it means that I am much more likely to actually find an ad to be of interest. Incidentally, have you considered just using Google’s AdSense service for your ads?
May 8th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Here’s what on my brain:
1: Some sort of ad and sponsored “subscribe” links on the “Welcome page”.
2: Ads in between every nth feed entry with a maximum of 2 per feed. These would be part of the scroll.
3: What kind of extra features would be worth paying for?
4: We add users in fits and spurts depending on who links to us or reviews us. We don’t do any official promotion beyond word of mouth. I was thinking about this: The top two or three websites that give us traffic that results in new users could have free ad space. The only thing is that I wouldn’t want previously impartial and spontaneous reviews to be corrupted. It would have to be some standard banner or something. Any thoughts on this?
A skyscraper on the right could work, but adding another column feels wrong somehow.
I will talk to our host and see if I can wrangle a price break for placement out of them.
We’ll investigate more cost effective options like grid hosts. Thanks for the offering advice Andrew Sutherland, I might take you up on it. Quizlet looks really cool, I wish they had the internet when I was in school
Thanks to everyone for feedback and comments.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Another thing, does anyone have any experience with implementing ads that work with dynamic content? We could just slap Google ads in, but they would likely just be PSAs or random silliness. Google ads work great for “static” content like blogs but not so well for application style sites like Newshutch.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Depending on how many pageviews you get per day, you can apply to a CPM network like ValueClick; they pay around $0.20-0.30 per 1,000 impressions so we don’t have to click the ads to make you money. They offer all of the popular ad formats.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I don’t mind the current quotebook ad — it displays continuously, but it doesn’t interfere with my reading experience, so everybody wins. Barring that, I’d say an ad every nth feed. The other possibilities seem suboptimal. I’d probably try other free readers (I’ve only used this and the wretched Bloglines) before I ponied up the lincolns (sorry!).
May 10th, 2007 at 11:57 am
A third column wouldn’t be wrong - I reckon you could build a hybrid system:
- A skyscraper ad on the right for free users
- No ads for paying subscribers
If you go all-out and make NH subscription only, you’ll lose a big part of your audience, however, if you only offer an ad supported version, then the Advert Haters will snub you.
Having the ads at the bottom gives the impression that the end of the feed has been reached - I still get that impression even with the tiny ad that is at the bottom now.
Good luck fellas!
May 11th, 2007 at 2:03 am
“Having the ads at the bottom gives the impression that the end of the feed has been reached - I still get that impression even with the tiny ad that is at the bottom now.”
I agree. It completely interrupts the flow.
May 14th, 2007 at 8:07 am
In between nth posts is fine with me. An ad as big as the logo on the left, underneath the logo would also be OK.
I’d rather not see a fee.
And no extremely flashy ads please. We’re trying to read here.
(I was stunned to see that sort at Huffington Post)
May 14th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Just the addition of a border would be a huge help, so your eyes aren’t tricked into thinking the ad is the end of the feed content, but an independent entity. It would also help if it spanned the whole width of the page, to further distinguish it from rss feeds. My two cents.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
+1 text ads
Smaller individual news items as well.
June 10th, 2007 at 4:35 am
+2 text ads (as it were).
I really like the idea of the ads underneath the feed list, if it’s reasonable and feasible for you guys. It was actually my first thought when you guys introduced ads.
In any case, awesome app. I love using it, and appreciate you guys listening to the people who use it.