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What’s your say on ad banners on Indian blogs ?

June 24, 2007 · Posted in India Web 2.0, India blogs, india online advertising 

While a storm brews in the US blogosphere on a controversial ad campaign from Microsoft, the second session at IAMAI’s Web 2.0 conference touched upon the topic of using blogs as a marketing tool in the Indian market (If you do not have the time or patience to sit through the 1 1/2 hour video, catch a brief summary at ContentSutra).

A couple of panelists, including Garima from Citibank, were of the opinion that ad banners on blogs were a bad idea. The rationale being that advertising on blogs disrupts the sanctity and integrity of blogs.

I strongly disagree. Majority of the Indian blogs already use Adsense as part of their blogs and as long as bloggers have a disclosure policy, I think ad banners on blogs are perfectly acceptable.

What do other Indian bloggers feel about this ? Also, as part of the blog audience, what do you think about this ? Should blogs have ad banners ?


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6 Responses to “What’s your say on ad banners on Indian blogs ?”

  1. Deepak Shenoy on June 26th, 2007 8:27 am

    I write a blog with adsense on it. While I do have ads of every variety, I also have written articles that are not flattering to the companies that seem to advertise on my site - In fact, in one instance I have specifically disclosed that such company ads may be displayed on the page.

    I don’t get the integrity equation. Citigroup has a division that releases research reports on stocks (”buy”, “sell” etc) and also have a banking or other relationship with the same company? For instance they said “BUY Indian Hotels” (The taj group of hotels) - http://www.indiaearnings.com/sub_india/compnews.php?autono=287796 - and they also have a co-branded card with Taj Hotels.

    You might say “but they are different divisions!” - to me, the viewer, it would pretty much sound like an integrity problem at the same lines as blogs with ads. Especially with third party ads like adsense where the advertiser can place an ad without the blogger even knowing about it.

  2. pranav on June 26th, 2007 3:55 pm

    Deepak,

    Blogs and blogging has been so popular because they give the blogger the freedom of self expression. in other words, you write whatever you’re passionate about. As a result, blogs and bloggers are generally more closely scrutinized about integrity, disclosure and such.

    Blogs and the blog audience form a very vibrant, enthusiastic, passionate and last but not the least - very opinionated ecosystem. One of the foundations of this ecosystem is trust. Any external factor (ads and banners) introducing bias into this ecosystem generally does not fare well with the blog audience. I could go on, but you get the picture.

  3. Sidhartha Bezbora on October 30th, 2007 7:22 am

    There is nothing wrong in putting ad banners in blogs. Most people start blogging as a hobby and in the process if they start putting some ads and earn some extra penny then there is no harm in it. Again a lot depends on the kind of blog where ad banners have been put.

    A new blogging ecosystem is getting developed there are millions of blogs out there some one is always looking to monetize his site. For example I love blogging and if my blog can financially support me I would love to leave my job and blog full time. Amit of Labnol.org is now a full time blogger earns good from his blog . He is full time into blogging and left his job. He is doing an excellent job.

  4. pranav on October 31st, 2007 8:54 pm

    sidhartha,

    you nailed it — if only these marketers felt the same way :-)

  5. Ebrahim Mafooz on November 1st, 2007 5:16 am

    We i being a web hosting provider and designer find many blogs hosted under me have google adsence associated with it. Mostly blogs are started just as a hobby and if its successfull they atleast get returns to pay up their hosting charges.

    And ads mostly dont become disturbing unless its a pop up or like so.

    and as sidhartha said its becoming a great revenue zone for all the newbies to the internet.

  6. Praveen on July 11th, 2008 10:29 am

    If blogger is really interested in personal blogging, he need not add advertisements in his blog. My web company hosts blogs at very cheap cost. I don’t think that blogs hosted by us need banner ads for recovering the hosting cost.