Just saw that there is now an ad in the sidebar of SFN articles. I was under the impression that SFN didn't want to rely on ads to deliver their services, so I'm a little bit baffled by seeing this. It's not like they are extremely disruptive where they are now, but they certainly hurt the visuals of the site and I would like to be able to turn them off as a paying supporter, though I'm not sure how much effort that would take in terms of development.
We've been experimenting with an ad on SFF Network exclusively since late January, about two weeks ago (emphasis on
experimenting - this is more a curiosity than a permanent fixture, at least for now). We actually had a banner on the home page as well, about half-way down, but we found it too disruptive to the layout of the site and chose to nix it on those grounds. So the only ad on the whole site presently is the one in the sidebar when viewing an article.
There are a few reasons we're trying this out. For one, although we don't want ads on SFF Forum if we can help it (mostly because we currently can't conceive of a way to incorporate them without disrupting the aesthetics and usability of the site), with the news site, we do have a way to introduce an ad that is minimally disruptive - the sidebar. Practically all publications have ads, people who don't mind generally expect them, and people that do mind have ad blockers. The ad certainly doesn't improve the site at all, but we think it's about as tame as it gets, especially as we tweak the filtering to keep its content relevant and tasteful.
The more important reason we're experimenting with the sidebar ad is the one Aiboh mentions, though (emphasis mine):
...In the long run I'd love it if we could rely solely on user subscriptions and not have to run any ads anywhere but for now we need to diversify.
As SFF Network and SFF Forum continue to grow, some of our expenses will scale commensurately. Right now, the flow of supporter subscriptions is approaching our costs, but it will become increasingly more challenging to match running expenses with donations as the user base expands. Having a small flow of ad revenue that complements this income, and - most importantly - scales with increasing demand, would help to address this dynamic.
...In any case, as I mentioned, the ad is more an experiment than anything else. We're not sure if it will stay there because we need more time to tweak what ads are displayed, and see if the revenue they generate is meaningful. But we want an understanding of how it would work since it would essentially act as a hedge against the possibility of expenses outstripping donations - a scenario that's likely to come up eventually.
