Friday, January 18, 2008
Book Ads in the NYTimes, 1962-1973
I missed it when it ran this summer, but in June Paper Cuts, the Times book blog, posted a slideshow of old book ads from what it called the "Golden Age" of book advertising.Included are ads for a bunch of heavy hitters like Susan Sontag, Edna O'Brien, Cormac McCarthy, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, and Donald Barthelme. I'm not sure I'd call it a Golden Age--the books may be impressive, but the ads seem to have thrived then as now on hidebound cliché*. But there's some good stuff there, and more than a few signs of the time: overt sexism, boomer self-importance, and everybody's smoking.
Unfortunately a number of the images are poorly reproduced. Seems a shame, for a slideshow, especially one so otherwise intersting. Maybe we should all chip in a few bucks and get Paper Cuts a new scanner.
* A cliché, I know.
Labels: ads, books, New York Times, Paper Cuts
Monday, November 19, 2007
Wordie Mobile, New Feature Roundup
This weekend saw the arrival of Wordie Mobile, a version of the site optimized for phones and other small-screen devices. This makes it much easier to add a word to your lists if you're at the library, or on the bus, or wherever: Just point your phone browser to http://wordie.org/m. Thanks to Crystal over at Twitter for inspiring this. Other new goodies launched in the last week or two:
- Updated, more wordie-esque design for Errata. Obviously.
- Paging for past comments. You can now scroll back through all 36,367 of them.
- Ads on every page, every day! Ok, so that's not exactly a feature, but, well, baby needs shoes.
- You can now leave comments on tag pages, like so.
- A new search page, which lets you search comments, lists, or, via the Gooble, everything at once.
- More sort options for lists, and maybe some other little niceties like that; I've probably forgotten something.
There's more good stuff on deck, though the pace of development may slow a bit as I focus on other projects. More on that soon.
Labels: ads, comments, mobile, search, Tags
Monday, October 15, 2007
And Now a Word From Our Sponsors
Starting tomorrow, Wordie is going to runs ads. Standard Google text ads (no images), at the top of each page.
But ads will run only on Tuesdays. Kind of like casual Friday, but for ads. And on Tuesday.
I'm curious to see what the Google ad-matching algorithm does with Wordie's all-over-the-map content. Chained_bear's Journey of a 300-Year-Old House list is going to bring up ads for roofing and home depot--even I could write that algorithm. But what about lek and waxed paper? And I'm scared, but curious, to see what it does with this.
The decision to run ads is part joke, part curiosity, but mostly it's economic. I cover Wordie's costs, and it's adding up. And as traffic rises, so does the expense.
On other sites I've built, like Squirl, the fact that the site carried ads led some people to believe we were minting money. Let me disabuse you of that notion. Here are the numbers.
On a good day Wordie serves around 7,000 page views. You're doing pretty well to earn $1 per thousand page views from Google, so Wordie might make $7 per Tuesday†, or $28 a month. Wordie is served on a 512MB slice (from the inimitable Slicehost), which costs me $38 a month. So, I'm still in the hole $10 every month, much less paying myself anything (though socializing with you Wordies is, of course, reward enough--*smooch*). These limited ads will defray my costs, that's it.
I'm a little sad about ending Wordie's commercial-free phase, but hopefully this won't be too intrusive. Over time, I hope to refine the way ads are presented so that they're maybe even a bit amusing--like build a system where, say, Ikea could run furniture ads on all the furniture words. Credenza, brought to you by Ikea. I'd insist on writing all the copy, of course*. Sort of like a 1940s radio soap opera, or Sesame Street: Today's episode is brought to you by the letter N, and the number 3! Except that the number 3 was getting a free ride.
In any case, this is, as always, a work in progress. Let me know what you think.
† UPDATE: The results are in, and after one Tuesday of ads, I can say that my initial back of the envelope calculations were wildly optimistic. We did indeed get around 7,000 page views. Cut all the rest of the numbers in half. The final take: $3.45.
* Actually, if anyone wants to buy advertising space directly, and is willing to let me write the copy, you should have, you know, your people get in touch with my people**.
** Uh, I don't have any people. Not those kind of people, at least. Email me: john[at]wordie.org.
But ads will run only on Tuesdays. Kind of like casual Friday, but for ads. And on Tuesday.
I'm curious to see what the Google ad-matching algorithm does with Wordie's all-over-the-map content. Chained_bear's Journey of a 300-Year-Old House list is going to bring up ads for roofing and home depot--even I could write that algorithm. But what about lek and waxed paper? And I'm scared, but curious, to see what it does with this.
The decision to run ads is part joke, part curiosity, but mostly it's economic. I cover Wordie's costs, and it's adding up. And as traffic rises, so does the expense.
On other sites I've built, like Squirl, the fact that the site carried ads led some people to believe we were minting money. Let me disabuse you of that notion. Here are the numbers.
On a good day Wordie serves around 7,000 page views. You're doing pretty well to earn $1 per thousand page views from Google, so Wordie might make $7 per Tuesday†, or $28 a month. Wordie is served on a 512MB slice (from the inimitable Slicehost), which costs me $38 a month. So, I'm still in the hole $10 every month, much less paying myself anything (though socializing with you Wordies is, of course, reward enough--*smooch*). These limited ads will defray my costs, that's it.
I'm a little sad about ending Wordie's commercial-free phase, but hopefully this won't be too intrusive. Over time, I hope to refine the way ads are presented so that they're maybe even a bit amusing--like build a system where, say, Ikea could run furniture ads on all the furniture words. Credenza, brought to you by Ikea. I'd insist on writing all the copy, of course*. Sort of like a 1940s radio soap opera, or Sesame Street: Today's episode is brought to you by the letter N, and the number 3! Except that the number 3 was getting a free ride.
In any case, this is, as always, a work in progress. Let me know what you think.
† UPDATE: The results are in, and after one Tuesday of ads, I can say that my initial back of the envelope calculations were wildly optimistic. We did indeed get around 7,000 page views. Cut all the rest of the numbers in half. The final take: $3.45.
* Actually, if anyone wants to buy advertising space directly, and is willing to let me write the copy, you should have, you know, your people get in touch with my people**.
** Uh, I don't have any people. Not those kind of people, at least. Email me: john[at]wordie.org.
Labels: ads, credenza, lek, tuesday
