bannerideas_random
and include the result in your page
output.
Note that when a user clicks the "more" link from a banner idea, the
click is logged in the clickthroughs
column of the
bannerideas
table.
To save wear and tear on the database, the banner ideas are pulled from the database and cached in RAM for one hour (by default).
I tested this theory by putting crass animated banner ads at the top of some pages in the LUSENET system at greenspun.com. I put banner ideas at the bottom of other pages and also put them into classified ads at photo.net. The result? Not a single complaint about the garish commercial-ish banner ads. Huge volumes of email complaining about the ideas.
Here's one from someone who has concluded that photo.net was started to be some sort of commercial trading post:
(this author was referring to an excerpt from Aristophanes in Travels with Samantha and a reference to my avoiding litigation article)You're photo.net site is great, I have been using it for a long time and have bought/sold many many items. I also enjoy the equipment reviews and travel pics. Please take the following in a friendly manner, and as a request from someone who obviously thinks differently than yourself. Recently you began adding small "ads" at the bottom of other people's ads. Some of the ads you have posted are very offensive to me and I would greatly object to them appearing along with one of my ads. The two I saw today include references to a God that created man-man, man-woman, and woman-woman couples. To me it is blasphemy, and dangerous to a young mind, like my son's who I allow to peruse your site. The other ad seemed to promote anti-social behaviour, encouraging one to have fewer "transactions" with others. I love your site, but if these ads continue I will be forced to use other avenues such as ebay to enjoy my photo buying/selling habits. Again, thanks for a great site, but let's keep it free from these very personal opinions....
Here's another one from a railroad group:
This was provoked by a reference to the community chapter of Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, which uses the Michigan Milita to make the point that most organizations spend most of their time on education, even if they wouldn't be thought of as primarily educational in nature.However, some members of our group feel that a portion of the material being presented is a little too controversial to expose to people who are expecting to see only railroad content. We are not out to advocate any positions one way or another, just talk about trains. For example, someone reported a message pointing to a militia Web page. It's fine with us that militia groups have Web sites, but we figure people visit our site to take a time out from such weighty issues. We would prefer for people to locate those on their own.
I think my theory holds up. A lot of folks can't stand unfamiliar ideas! What I did not expect is how much difficulty many people have in reading comprehension. The most virulent complaints were from people who had simply misunderstood the banner idea or the linked-to article. This can't be a matter simply of literacy because the same people were perfectly capable of writing a grammatical multi-paragraph complaint.