After his little hissy fit about all the millions of visitors Google sends to his websites every day, here’s a sign o’ the times down News Corporation Way. Yup – running ads inside the RSS feed. Way to win over the kids, Rupert.
On a more serious note, the desperation of throwing ads into an RSS feed might indicate some of the pressure that newspapers are under to generate money through their online channels. Seriously, who is going to think “I need the scoop on the latest happenings in the world” and then be distracted enough to click a link for cheap Toshiba laptops? And when you think of the kind of new stories likely to be here (deaths, bombings, terrorism, knicker theft) how happy do you suppose the advertisers would be to see their ads running alongside them? And just look at the atrocious format – 9000x9000px animated gifs. Gee, thanks.
It’s a good job The Times has some stellar opinion writers (such as Rod Liddle, Matthew Parris, AA Gill and Jeremy Clarkson, if you’re wondering) otherwise I wouldn’t give Murdoch the satisfaction of a page impression.
Rod Liddle is a Leeds United hating tw*t of the highest order!
I have to overlook that because he also hates on the hippies
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