Advertising

Educate Thyself. 

Don't talk to the police.  Don't talk to the police.  Don't talk to the police.

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/06/16/dont-talk-to-the-police/

There's a new ad, over on the right, for IlliniShuttle.com. Please check it out.

If any of you are interested in advertising on IP.com or know of someone who might be interested, rates are insanely cheap.

Please email me for more information.

Thanks.

The local Ron Paul supporters have purchased an ad for his campaign over on the right, and I thank them for doing so.

UPDATE:  To preempt any conspiracy theories :  Yes, I have approved the ad to run, but the ordered start date was 1/25 (which is today) and I don't know or have any control over what time today it will start to appear. The only thing I can control is approve/disapprove, and I've approved it.

(I wonder why it would be necessary to preempt conspiracy theories?)

UPDATE - 10:02 AM:  There it is, just underneath the Land For A Cause ad.

There's a new ad over on the right, from landforacause.com.

Please check them out, and if you know of anyone interested in blog advertising, our rates are very cheap, the ads help keep this place running, and we have lots of availability.  ;-)

Thanks.

This link is to an article about toy manufacturer compliance with standards to protect workers in overseas plants and to ensure the safety of their products--a somewhat more important, but less visible issue than my last blog post about baseball and drug use.   The artcile focuses mostly on Mattel.   Partcipants in this forum who invoke the term "nanny-statism" or have interest in protecting people as well as whales should have some comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/magazine/23Mattel-t.html?th&emc=th

Illinois blogger par excellence ArchPundit has assembled a BlogAds "hive" called "Blogginois" to collectively market advertising services.  You can see a new ad on the right for that hive.

The other bloggers in the hive are:

• Chicagoist
• Peoria Pundit
• Prairie State Blue
• Chicago Reader
• Methods Reporter
• Faithfully Liberal

To advertise, click on the ad on the right, or go here.

Thanks!

The News-Gazette may wish to note that the New York Times has tried charging users for content, and they have failed.

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said.

That's not to say that the NYT is always right, that there weren't other factors or that such a business model cannot work.  Just pointing it out...

Yes, there's a new BlogAd over on the right.

Yes, it's for Barack Obama's Presidential campaign.

Yes, I'm happy to accept his advertising.

In fact, I'd urge his campaign to spend more money advertising on blogs generally and IP.com specifically, as IP.com readers are the smartest, most politically savvy and best-looking people in all of America.  (That, and a generous share of our readers do vote in Democratic Primaries.)

Some obtuse commenters have been very concerned about the amount of traffic IP.com has been generating lately, even going so far as to say that our criticism of State Rep. Naomi Jakobsson and other Democrats for thier pension votes has somehow hurt our credibility and cost us readers - all because we don't swallow the standard Democrat talking points.

I do like to post periodic traffic updates, even though I'm certain they're completely uninteresting to anyone but me - but the growth of our readership over past eleven months just astonishes me.  And I know we're small potatoes compared to Capitol Fax, Archpundit and Peoria Pundit, but we're not competing with those gentlemen, but (hopefully) complementing them.

For the record, we've been slowly but steadily increasing our traffic almost every week.  Yesterday we rolled over 275,000 total visits (since we opened in January).  Last week was our best week ever, with over 4,300 unique visitors and 17,000 total vists.  I can still remember in January when I'd look at the counter and be able to tell when Matthew had visited - because he was one of about a dozen regular readers.

In addition, we've been "feeding" between 40 and 70 subscribers daily, who have been hitting the site sometimes 1,000 times in a day - much more regularly than standard visitors.  That's the little button you see on the right that says, "XX reader

So, our traffic is way, way beyond what I had ever thought it would be, and I thank you for that.  We wouldn't be growing without the buzz created by word-of-mouth and emailed posts and the active participation of our community.

Sometime after Thanksgiving, we're going to roll out a more active and comprehensive advertising sales policy and strategy.  I'd like to get this site to the point where it will pay for itself, but that's probably asking too much.  One thing is certain:  developing a very locally-focused political website isn't a path to untold riches.

Thank you for reading and commenting and emailing and subscribing.  And I'd like to invite each of you to conside starting a site of your own.  The more independent, citizen journalists we have in our state and community, the more informed our political discourse will be.  But even if you don't start off on your own - thank you very much for stopping by IP.com.  We'll keep working to get better, and always welcome your suggestions.

There's a new BlogAd over there on the right.  Hosting this site is getting a little expensive, and if you like what we're doing, clicking on the ads is one easy way you can support our efforts.

The Parkland College Republicans are running a new BlogAd here.  Click-through, open the document and find out why they're asking for help.

If anyone else is interested in advertising, please let me know or click the "Advertise on IlliniPundit.com" link on the right.  It's a cheap and effective way to reach opinion-makers and leaders in Champaign County.