The Awful, Contradictory Advertising Network
Posted by Richard on Tuesday, 9 May 2006In the spirit of 43 Thongs, I introduce The Dreck, the awful, contradictory advertising network. If I spent more time on it, it could have been funnier, but as is, it's a parody of The Deck, the exclusive, almost haughty ad network for high-traffic sites by designers. (My site is low-traffic, and I'm not a designer.) The sites in the network that I read regularly: Kottke.org, whose micropatron initiative I supported; Daring Fireball, which I am a paying member of; and Waxy.org. For sites that are included in an ad network that target design professionals, they don't feature a lot of writing about web design (maybe that's why it's “web and design” and not "web design"?). Both Andy Baio and John Gruber linked to or mentioned Jason Kottke's article about joining, and it seemed a little self-congratulatory (especially Jeffrey Zeldman's announcement), and therefore ripe for mockery. The sales material for The Deck says the following:
We're picky about the advertising we'll accept. We won't take an ad unless we have paid for and/or used the product or service. Sell us something relevant to our audience and we'll sell you an ad.
No word on whether what those in the ad network actually think of the product. And who is the "we"? Does that mean that everybody has to buy the product? I'd love to see, in the ads on each individual site, a link to a review by that site's author, with the disclosure that they're part of the network. But enough soapboxing: The Deck at this writing does not validate HTML 4.01. For the sole purpose of showing them up, my parody validates using modern XHTML 1.1.
You'll note the placement of a Google ad: I put that there because I thought it would be funny. (Do you agree?) Regardless of its comedic value, I will donate all revenue from that ad to the Vancouver Community Network, a non-profit Internet service provider that hosts websites and provides dial-up (among other services) for non-profits and low-income residents of the Lower Mainland. I'd hate to make money of this kind of thing.
