[OSM-talk] Advertising on OSM?

[Andrew]

Re the wiki article - I don't know that this is really an Internet
Explorer specific issue. I just loaded the slippy page in Firefox on
FC5, and immediately below the slippy map is the text "Free Map and
Direction Tool", with a link to the Starware site discussed in the
article. Reading the text of the letter, specifically:

> "I ... went straight to the website you mentioned. The first thing
that struck me
> was the enthusiastic greeting to use many facilities that have nothing
to do with
> maps. Slightly dismayed, I nevertheless downloaded the program..."

I think a likely scenario is that this user loaded the slippy map page,
saw the text "Free Map and Direction Tool", assumed that this was
required for use of OSM, and installed it. It isn't that bad an
assumption, after all. They may well also have got a Firefox install ad,
or something else (the "many facilities"), but thats not the main problem.

This could happen as easily on Firefox as IE. The problem is that the
text "Ads by Gooooogle" and "We're trialing adverts to support the
project. Login and they go away." are both too unobtrusive.

If it doesn't breach the agreement with google ads, I think the whole ad
block should be be in a nice black border, with "ADVERTISING CONTENT" at
the top in prominent type. As suggested by others, seeding the page with
words like GPS, NaviGPS, Garmin, etc, which might suck in better ads and
thus get some click-throughs, would be worth considering.

2c finished.
Andrew.


OJW wrote:
> Someone visiting OSM website for the first time brought up the question: 
>
> whether we should be recommending (via advertising on the front page) 
> malicious software, proprietary maps, etc.
>
> * http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Image:Osm_virus_letter.jpg
>
> Currently we allow google to display any advert for which the advertiser has 
> chosen a map-related keyword
>
> Regards
>
> OJW
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>