AOL Journals Ads Infuriate Bloggers
Exclusive Concepts Blog Team November 23, 2005AOL has just started selling banner ad space on its blog service, AOL Journals. While other bloggers accepts ads on their pages because it keeps the service free, many AOL Journals users pay for their blog and are outraged by the ads. They think ads disrupt the look of the site and violate the spirit of their entries. They also feel betrayed by AOL for not consulting them or even warning them that the ads were coming. Here are some sample posts in response to the ads:
“Note the Ad at the top… this was put there by AOL without my permission or consent. I am a paying customer… a subscriber… yet there is an Ad on this Journal which contains my personal thoughts, dreams, hopes and desires.” (from The Gift of Life)
‘I ask you AOL, “What makes you think advertisements belong in my journal when the content is my written expression, my creations, and intensely personal extensions of myself?”‘ (from MirrorMirrorontheWall)
“it appears that AO Hell is not going to listen to it’s customers in regards to these atrocious, hideous, and intrusive banner ads.” (from The Return of Kaseypalooza)
“They lost a lot of integrity with me taking advantage of me and others who use a pop up and ad blocking tool to begin with and would have never noticed the ugly banner ads that solicited our readers if it weren’t for others in the AOL community complaining about them!” (from TheWildCatBlog)
“It has been a week since AOL unveiled its dastardly plan to turn Hometown AOL into a big Spamorama. In an effort to keep up with the other generic ISP portals, AOL has sacrificed members services and satisfaction for advertising $$$.” (from DustBunnyClub)
More about AOL Journals ads here.
Comments (2)
A few details: AOL journals initially launched more than two years ago, and have been ad free until this month. Last May, AOL launched AIM journals, free to anyone without the need for an AOL membership. AIM journals have had ads since inception. At the time, paid AOL members were told that one of the benefits they enjoyed was ad free journals, even though the AIM journals had ads. Then, two weeks ago, without any advance notice, AOL added the banner ads to the journals of paying AOL members. Adding insult to injury, the software update involved had some significant bugs, effectively denying many paying AOL members access to their journals, in some cases for several days. AOL has, to date, offered no response, of any kind, to their complaining customers.
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As a professional photographer and fine art photographic artist I can relate to the comments about AOL placing ads on their blog. But in all reality folks do you thing for one single solitary micro second AOl really gives a rats ass about how you think. That’s a BIG N.O. AOL cares about only thing…AOL. All that bull crap you see on TV is pure hog wash. Do you honestly think for one minute that AOL isn’t going to grab at the chance of making a few more measley bucks at the expense of their customers…HELL NO! AOL will do what AOL does best…make money. The do provide a good webservice…but don’t think you or I or we will get one damn thing more from AOL than that. If it wasn’t for the fact that my entire business is linked to AOL’s screen name…I’d a been gone a long time ago. But I will say this for the AOL corporate carpet baggers…they do provide a very secure web environment to enjoy the big dub dub dubya. And…they know it. So let me say to you what AOL would just love to say but wouldn’t dare…tuff shit.
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