It's been a little while since I checked in with you on our plans for advertising. Actually, I guess it's more of a plan to keep the lights on and keep Giant Bomb up and running by ensuring that we've got some money coming in.
Well, today is the day that we can say that there's some money coming through the door. Today's the day that you can find a bit of advertising around the site in the form of an MPU--that's the secret codeword that means "Flash-based rectangle that wants you to buy or do something."
But you won't actually see that ad too often. Part of our philosophy here is that the ads will be a little more effective if they aren't completely frustrating and obtrusive. So we aren't stickering up every single corner of the site with boxes and animated men with chainsaw-guns saying "Pardon me, have you heard of this Gears of the War 2 video game we're releasing next month?!!?!?!" Instead, it seems like a tasteful reminder that says "excuse me, not to interrupt, but I felt you should know about the ongoing conflict between the humans and the Locust over on planet Sera."
You'll see any given ad on the site no more than a few times a day--and then it simply won't appear for the rest of that day. Furthermore, our plan states that less than 40 percent of our pages will have ads on them at all. Though, considering the current state of the economy and how that's impacting the advertising market, I don't expect we'll actually hit that 40 percent mark anytime soon.
As for our involvement in the ad process, it's limited to absolute veto power. All of the advertising will cross through us before it goes onto the site, and if there's something we're not comfortable with, like an awful game or ugly, noisy ads or something, we intend to shoot it down.
We also have a few more ideas on money and ways you can help keep us in business that we'll be looking at in the coming months, including merchandise. Actually, I'm staring at a box full of hoodies with Luchadeer on the back right now. I should probably figure out what we're going to do with those... hmm...
Anyway, before I get too far off-topic here, I'll just close by saying that we've spent a lot of time formulating plans to ensure that we can run ads on this site and cover our costs without ruining the site in the process. That said, we definitely value your feedback on this stuff. If the advertising is way too crazy for you--or if you think we're handling it properly--let us know. Thanks.
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