Serving ads in software

I am developing a piece of shareware software.

Can anyone please advise how i may include ads in it?  Most of the sites i have been to only server banner ads.  How does flashget or kazaa do it?

thanks
alex

Alex
Sunday, December 28, 2003

Does ad supported shareware actually make any money? I know that a lot of shareware have removed their ads. (Read this http://www.getright.com/statement.html)

It's also the quickest way to get your shareware labeled spyware.

Matthew Lock
Sunday, December 28, 2003

You might want to check out:
http://www.cydoor.com/

Not that I recommend it or anything, I just know that they seem to be making an awful lot of money doing this stuff...

Elan Dekel
Sunday, December 28, 2003

Cydoor is exactly what I meant about getting your software labeled as spyware. Check out the pages returned when you search on "cydoor" http://www.google.com.au/search?q=cydoor

Matthew Lock
Sunday, December 28, 2003

Opera does this and their documentation is pretty good.

Banner Advertising Implementation
http://www.opera.com/docs/ads/index.dml

Advertise In Opera
http://www.opera.com/advertise/

You can probably learn a lot from these two links.

www.MarkTAW.com
Sunday, December 28, 2003

Ads are anoying. Maybe you'll have more luck making the basic version free, but providing an enhanced but commercial version.

Frederic Faure
Sunday, December 28, 2003

Speaking of ads, I have been quite surprized that there aren't "sponsored" applications -- not banner ads rotating downloaded ads or anything like that, but rather just a particular corporation branding -- i.e. you load up SmartFTP and the splash screen proclaims "Brought to you by coke", and maybe the color theme is red and white with minimal coke branding. Given the proliferation of branding in the rest of the world, the fact that many very popular apps aren't branded seems bizarre to me. I'm, of course, talking about free versions of software -- this does not carry over to pay products. Speaking of that, the wife bought the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" DVD - Unbelievably there are literally 15 ads before the movie starts. They are all ads by the same company promoting their other garbage movies, but this abuse of customers just blew me away.

Dennis Forbes
Sunday, December 28, 2003

>> I have been quite surprized that there
>>aren't "sponsored" applications -- not banner ads
>>rotating downloaded ads or anything like that, but
>>rather just a particular corporation branding

The Weatherbug

http://www.weatherbug.com/aws/index.asp

does this.  If you use their free version, every so often you pick a sponsor from a list of 20-30 companies and the background of the application becomes a billboard for that company.

Jason

Jason
Sunday, December 28, 2003

>> Ads are anoying. Maybe you'll have more luck making the >> basic version free

I agree. That's why I quit using Opera.

Winamp is free as in beer, but they have a paid version with some extra functionality, so they get both ample installed base, and revenue.

If you go for the ads, at the very *least*, make sure your ads aren't *animated*.

Alex.ro
Sunday, December 28, 2003

This is BS, in my opinion.

The makers of WinAmp are called Nullsoft.

Nullsoft was purchased by AOL.

So - AOL finances the whole thing - you know how big US companies are - they can afford to drop some money on such a thing.

Max
Sunday, December 28, 2003

> Ads are anoying.

So say the people who are actively participating in something that could be viewed as a subtle form of advertising for a small software company in New York.

www.MarkTAW.com
Monday, December 29, 2003

The point is that Joel isn't showing any ads in this forum. If he attached a "BUY FOGBUGZ!" banner to every post the number of posts here would decline sharply very soon...

Chris Nahr
Monday, December 29, 2003

I wonder how long until the advertisers realise that there's little money advertising to people too cheap to pay the $20 registration fee.

Matthew Lock
Monday, December 29, 2003

Well, Joel does put in small tags/ads at the end of his articles (My company recently released version 3 etc. etc.)...

InsideInfo
Tuesday, December 30, 2003

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