Parent Hacks admin: On advertising

As you may have noticed, Parent Hacks now sports graphical and text ads. Here's why I've decided to make Parent Hacks (hopefully) ad-supported, and what I am (and am not) planning to do with this site.

I didn't start Parent Hacks with a business model in mind. Basically, my aim was to start the ongoing conversation I wish I could have found while I was in the throes of new motherhood.

Things have gone so much better so much faster than I could have anticipated. As a result, I'm working on Parent Hacks a lot more than I'd originally planned. I'm coming to realize that this site could someday become my job -- an actual "do what you love and the money will follow" sort of scenario.

Obviously, the "money" part comes from ads and affiliate fees. No one likes ads exactly. But, when done well, they can be rather interesting (or easily ignored). I'm working with Federated Media Publishing to handle the graphical advertising on Parent Hacks. FM was started by John Battelle, who, among other things, is the "band manager" for Boing Boing and co-founded Wired magazine. John has a lot of integrity, and he and his team really get blogs. As such, FM's not just another ad network -- they understand that good blogs are built on useful content, but also on trust. Throwing out ad after crappy, irrelevant ad isn't a good way to maintain that trust.

FM's initial blog partners tended toward geek/tech (Boing Boing, 43Folders, digg, and PVRblog to name a few). FM is now branching out into other interest areas, one of which is parenting. Sites so far include Parent Hacks and the wonderful Dooce, with more to follow. (You've more than likely read Heather B. Armstrong's Dooce before, but if you haven't she's truly hilarious and brilliant.) I'm very excited about our partnership with FM -- they're a standup group of folks.

What does this mean for you? Not much really -- the content of Parent Hacks won't change a bit. FM and any advertisers who appear here have no say over what gets talked about, listed, or recommended. In fact, my ideal advertiser would be someone who already reads and likes Parent Hacks, and therefore knows what might be of interest to readers.

This site will never be a money-making machine. I'd like Parent Hacks to someday become self-supporting and even profitable, but not so much that I'm willing to obscure its content or turn it into a parking lot for popup mortgage ads.

Thanks for bearing with a long post -- and now, back to our regularly scheduled hacks!

Comments

[Larry Wright]

I don't have any problem with simple ads (we're running Adsense as well). It's popups, popunders, and annoying flashing things that get on my nerves. I think it's that type of thing that gave web advertising a bad name.

I hope that it works out well for you.

[Clay Cook]

Subtle advertising is a good idea.