Some time ago Robin Good posted a comment to my article RSS Advertising is Here, Whether You Like it Or Not, raising some interesting questions.

Please see the original article and Robin’s comments just below it to make more sense of this:)

“So my friend Rok where do you stand?”

Personally, I don’t mind ads in RSS feeds, and I also don’t think that as long as they are not overobtrusive end-users won’t mind them as well, although more hard-core RSS users might have a problem with them. But the majority … I don’t think so.

Just take a look at the reactions towards Google AdSense ads in RSS, and to the responses Pheedo has been getting from their ventures in this space. Not surprisingly, these initiatives are not generating much negative feedback.

Of course, more testing will need to be done, but end-users in my opinion will accept ads in feeds, as long as the content is valuable enough to them.

“Where is the borderline then?”

It depends on three factors:

a] The perceived content value and uniqueness. The more valuable and unique the content, the more acceptable various ad formats in feeds are going to be.

b] The general direction the market goes in to. When RSS ads start appearing in more and more feeds, market acceptance towards feeds that carry them will grow.

c] The ad obtrusiveness. Text ads won’t be a problem. Graphic ads might be more difficult, but as long as they remain civil, end-users will eventually accept them. Multimedia ads might be a problem, but on the long-term even those might become accepted with high-ranking publishers from point a] above.

“And how can you say when you are mistreating user trust in subscribing to your feed?”

There is no general rule. Eventually it will depend on the end-user, or end-user groups, and what they are used to.

Well, certainly, frequently pushing ads in the form of content items to subscribers that thought they were subscribing to a rich content feed, is mistreating user trust.

At least at this time, rich-media advertising as well falls under this category.

“Is RSS ads the only way to monetize content?”

Of course not, but it depends on your business model and your economy of scales.

Traditional publishers (and the same goes for their internet initiatives) cannot survive or be profitable without ad sales. Even with RSS that is not about to change, especially due to brand advertisers with their enormeous budgets.

For a small-business publisher, way to monetization might be in paid-subscription feeds.

For marketers monetization might come through indirectly increased sales of their products and increased online visibility.

But there is no general rule.

“And when you say RSS ads, are these text ads only or color banners too? Why?”

We need to ask ourselves one thing: are end-users using RSS because it’s ad free or because it’s more convenient and easy to use? Will RSS usage growth come from the first or the second?

Although it might be a combination of both, I’m quite certain most end-users will adopt RSS because of its ease of use.

Given this scenario, graphic banners should not be a problem, as my experience shows that as long as ads are civil, end-users do not mind them, at least not the greatest majority of them.

I’ll also venture on to say that probably we will eventually start seeing some testing done with rich-media ads in feeds, especially since these have become a huge hit with brand advertisers within the past year, proving that they have great affect on key brand metrics and greatly improve campaign results in conjunction with TV, print and outdoor advertising.

What will happen from there on?

Publishers with a loyal following actually might get away with doing this, as end-users get more acustomed to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate the idea of rich-media ads in feeds, but from how well I know the corporate online ad industry that just might happen, especially since rich-media ad impressions can reach an even more than 30 times greater price than standard banner ads.

It’s impossible to predict the future, but history does tend to repeat itself.

Of course, someone like Dave Winer can continue rallying RSS publishers against ads in feeds, but ‘the big guys’ won’t listen. What they will listen to are ad dollars, and these are coming.

And the sad truth may be that eventually these publishers (large media) might ‘own’ most of the RSS readership space.

“What about positioning inside the RSS feed? Do you think that makes a difference? Why?”

If you’re talking about full content item ads, I think I already answer to that above.

Looking forward to more questions and opinions:)

Please post them here.