Google’s acquisition of Feedburner, confirmed a few weeks ago, seems very reasonable for Google. A major portion of Google’s revenue comes from advertising. Serving AdSense ads through Feedburner feeds would give Google more income. Combined with Feedburner’s fabulous statistics, this could be a very powerful tool for serving targeted ads.
Highly targeted ads means more advertiser money, more money for Google and Feedburner, but also more money for the content publishers. The use of RSS is constantly becoming more popular, especially with RSS Reader integration into mail client software.
Many blog readers use their RSS reader as the only way of reading their favorite blogs. These blog readers don’t usually type the blog address, or use their Favorites or Bookmarks feature of their browser. Some of them don’t even bother clicking through to the blog, but just read the whole entry through the RSS reader. Targeted ads through the RSS feed would be the only way to reach such users.
Feedburner already has an advertising network, and Google is already experimenting with RSS AdSense. But, Feedburner’s strong side isn’t advertising, and Google’s strong side (although it conquers almost every field) isn’t RSS feeds.
The deal could harness the Google’s ads and Feedburner’s feed capabilites into a very strong tool.
And how does this encourage Problogging? Well, another serious income channel would be welcomed by probloggers, or potential probloggers. The only problem will be when too many ads on feeds might disturb users. If the blog is truly professional, and if the ads won’t be too aggressive, I’m sure that almost all the users will accept it. More money for content publishers means that more people can turn their expertise and writing hobby into a solid way of making a living.
The fruits of this deal will be very interesting to follow.
More on the subject at Workboxers.
Anyway, things.co.il isn’t a professional blog, therefore, it will remain (at least for now) ad-free. Also my RSS feed (English only feed) which you are encouraged to subscribe to, will remain ad-free.
