When I’m on the internet, I’m looking for quality information. NO MOUSEOVERS, NO ANIMATIONS OF ANY SORT!

Since you implied that you wanted to know what we like or don’t like in ads, I thought I’d voice my opinion.

What I Like:
A magazine type experience. Small fixed Ad is OK. NO FLASHING! NO ANIMATION! Not one that’s distracting from the article I’m trying to read. Soft round corners on the boxes, just like news print. I’m not that old. I’m middle aged. I am a computer professional and have been in the information technology arena for 15+ years. I surf the net DAILY and have for years. Programming, Database Administrator, Systems Analyst, you name it, I’ve done it. I understand revenue streams, technology, and sweet spots. That is, simplicity vs. functionality, vs revenue. etc.

I came across your site, and started to read it, not get this. I didn’t start reading it because I needed the article but because there were no animations. Save that blasted mouseover. If i want to go there I know how to ‘click’ the mouse. If it requires a mouseover, then its not self explanatory enough i.e. the layout is too complicated.

Also there are ads that take over the page. These ads prevent me from shrinking the screen over the ad so the words of the article can be read without distraction. The article will shrink from 9 inches wide to 1 inch or less wide while the ad stays in the picture.

I have to use my task manager set to ‘always on top’ to cover up the ad so the color and animations will not distract my reading of the black and white article. This is after I’ve read the ad and know that I’m not interested in it in any way. Still its distracting, hence the cover up.

Honestly, if you have good material… all that flashy stuff is just not necessary.

I personally don’t use ad blocking software although I:
a) use Flashblock, so I don’t, by default, see content or ads that are Flash
b) toss the occasional entry in my hosts file to block ads that annoy me (e.g. 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net)

Regarding ads, I rarely click on them because I skim a lot and don’t even see them. And besides, I’m frugal and wouldn’t buy anyway, so why click (unless I’m in the occasional mood to support the website, then I’ll click on a few)?

On one hand I’m glad you didn’t see the ads, but the other helps to confirm my belief that they are toned down perhaps a little too much in certain cases

These days on blogs I think the ads work better with search engine visitors which currently comprise over 55% of the traffic here. While I won’t get into specific financial numbers, SE traffic here is very ad click friendly. These results fuel my interest in spending time developing something more length-wise between articles and blog posts. The less detailed posts have limited lifespan and usefulness on multiple levels.

With ads being placed all over the web though I’m not surprised if it’s only going to become harder and harder to actually get clicks through ads. Myself I’ve recently added some ads again to my blog to see if with more visitors I’d actually be getting more clicks now compared to last year but so far it’s not looking good either.

I’m not sure how much money you currently make through ads though, but PayPerPost isn’t too bad of an option once you hit pr 5 or 6. Although compared to the shitty ops which there are available for me, I suppose the standard becomes higher as your blog becomes bigger as well. Every now and then though there are a bunch of $25+ ops available for pr5+ blogs, and rather than blatant credit card spam they actually come with some sort of subject from what I’ve seen.

The big buttons in the sidebar are optional, the only downside of course to payperpost is that it is a lot more invasive than text advertisements or something because it actually becomes part of your content. Whether that is worth it or not depends on how much money you’d make through the other ads I’d say, if they would give you more than what you think you’d make on a monthly basis with payperpost you’d have a direct answer and otherwise it might be something to think about.

Looking at things realistically though with the massive amount of blogs and sites in general present these days I personally think the entire concept of making money through the net is becoming less and less reachable, the competition is just so high it either plays out on luck or having to invest a lot to begin with even getting something back.