monetisation - end of

So as you will have seen, I no longer have ads on my blog. I felt it was a valid experiment but they are ugly and while clearly I never expected at all to make serious profits the amount of money generated was tiny.* All I really want is readers, and even then only because I am a writer, not because I have something super-important to say, and I think the ads probably detract from people hanging around to read (unless they are really immune to them). I think I also kind of suspect that the ads make the blog look like it's not actually active anymore, which I suppose most blogs aren't.   

So that's that. 

I'll still give money to Save the Bilby. 

*And it did not increase the amount of traffic here. 

the monetisation experiment

 

The impact on my blog of the adsense ads is just so ugly that I am blown away by it. I am 99% certain that I will end the experiment in a few days (so far I have earned around 1c from it, and that is not an exaggeration). Even if the rewards were, you know, a dollar a day I don't think I could hack it. (If the rewards were ten dollars a day, well, I'd leave this blog to its own devices for a couple of years to just earn money for itself and write a novel or something instead). 

monetising

So I decided I would open an adsense account for this blog and see what happened. A few thoughts were had over this. But the bottom line is I get ads all the time when I read things online (eg newspapers I subscribe to, magazines ditto) and while I don't love it, nor do I despise it. The other things is that while I don't expect to make any big $$ - I'm sure if anything it'll be a pittance - I was intrigued when I saw that, when I was in Finland two months ago, my Finnish readership really picked up. Not people reading about Finnish things but surely people in Finland being recommended things by the algorithm because I was nearby. Well, maybe the algorithm will be inspired by $$ to push my product more widely. In the unlikely event I make any money I will give it to charity (probably international wildlife fund) but writers need to be read and I want eyes on my little pearls of wisdom. You understand that, don't you?* 

Now, here's the first of a few pictures from our Sydney/Woy Woy trip on the weekend. 

*OK so I now see what it looks like and I don't necessarily like it very much. I'll give it a couple of weeks just as an experiment but at first glance I feel I am demeaning us all. 

money shot

Hey, I don't want this to become either the blog of Angry of Broadmeadows or the blog of man who asks the inappropriate questions all the time however uncomfortable they make everyone else feel. I don't even think these images (from an animated online ad for ANZ) are intended to be pornographic, despite the sensational title I used for this post, which I will probably come to regret (not because anything bad will happen, just because I have never been any good at titles. Or endings. Great at the inbetween though you'll surely agree).

I just wonder why the pelvis of this cartoon troll girl is being thrust so undeniably and repeatedly at the viewer, and what the advertisers' psychological tactic is here. Are we supposed to think 'if I don't keep my financial affairs in order, my children will end up in some parents' worst nightmare of fear and degradation, including becoming in some way sexually exploited'? Or are we supposed to think, 'my daughter's procreative abilities are the future of my genetic line and must be kept comfortable until successful reproduction'? You tell me, I'm no good at answers, only at asking questions.

money askers

Today is a day of having no money. Last week just before the book launch it was a surprise to discover the venue would not take a cheque and so we had to collectively (including but not to any great extent our host institution) get together some money to have our launch. I ended up contributing $250 and it's now two days from pay day and we have not had any money much since Saturday. The money was to be refunded today but it has not been because someone in the chain of duty didn't do what they should have. I will say no more about that. Anyway I am sure there is a way to be sensible with money and still have it at least a day or two before you get paid again but I haven't found it yet.

So for the first time I can ever remember I was asked for money on the Craigieburn line today, by a woman who was clearly quite deranged and wanted $2 from everyone (she asked me once on the train and once when I got off at Jacana, as did she - I later saw her confusedly going back down the ramp). A huge guy asked the young man in the seat in front of me for some money too and then instead of going down the carriage he just sat down. It was troubling for a while because I thought he was talking to the young man in threatening-hushed tones but later I decided he was just sitting there.

I spent the day at the State Library looking through 12 boxes of lantern slides from the collection of Frank Heath. Heath was a planner and architect who also lectured in Town Planning at the University of Melbourne 1948-54 so in that regard he is a predecessor of mine. To a certain degree the collection is a little disappointing, because so much of it just replicates the well-known images of early C20 town planning, but on the other hand, that it is all collected in this way is interesting and revelatory of what was on Heath's agenda as a lecturer in the early 50s (that said, there is no indication that these were his lecture slides - I'm just assuming).

Lantern slides are pretty nice. Compared to what we would now just call slides - I mean, the little squares of pos film, not the powerpoint slides - they are satisfying to hold and examine. It was pretty good in the Pictures Collection too. Very quiet.

By the way the image above is not from a lantern slide - it's a beautiful original drawing also at the SLV. Click on it for a larger view