Tonight we went to the church auction, and everyone got something. My seven year old boy selected a nice desktop air fan. We brought it home, plugged it in, and 15 minutes later he had an asthma attack.
We gave him his medicine, shut off the fan, and turned the air filter in his room to the highest setting. Yet, even after the fan was removed, the reaction continued unabated. We suspected that the pollen and dust that the fan had blown around his room continued to trigger his attack. We removed all his sheets, pillow cushions and vacuumed the room. This seemed to remove the irritant and allow his medicine to work.
After about an hour of suffering, he overcame his reaction, and fell asleep.
Tomorrow I'll replace the fan with a new one, since he really liked having a fan and had big plans for keeping himself cool all summer long (even though we have central air conditioning).
Just something to keep in mind: keep asthmatic kids away from dirty old fans. I'm willing to bet $1000 that whoever donated the fan to the church auction had a cat or was a smoker, both major triggers for his asthma.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Geo targeting ads on small web sites
No wonder Yahoo bought RightMedia this week.
I recently dumped Yahoo Publisher Network. In large part the reason was because YPN put the onus on me to only show their ads to U.S. visitors. If too many people log on from the UK, Canada or China, or whereever, I risk losing my YPN account. Strategically, it might be handy to have a YPN account in the future, so in the short term I decided to just drop YPN and go with Google. Google lets me show ads to any visitor.
YPN other publishers such as 7Search (who I had earlier lauded in this blog) apparently lack the will or technology to do their own Geotargeting. They sluff it off on website owners. Its certainly possible, although in convenient and resource intensive, to take the hours necessary to implement OpenAds or screw around with .htaccess files to do what these companies are unwilling to do.
If you've ever tried to make money off of a website, you probably know its not that easy. But having "partners" like YPN or 7Search that force you to do their dirty work doesn't make it easy.
With the purchase of RightMedia, Yahoo acquired the technology to geo-serve ads, as well as the ability to serve unfilled inventory by showing ads from other networks. This acquisition is, by my account, an excellent move by Yahoo.
Some day, I hope to learn that YPN has started doing their own dirty work by geotargeting their own ads. That will make YPN a better partner. That's what I'm saving my YPN account for. Until that day, my YPN account will sit in mothballs, and I will make money with Google instead.
I recently dumped Yahoo Publisher Network. In large part the reason was because YPN put the onus on me to only show their ads to U.S. visitors. If too many people log on from the UK, Canada or China, or whereever, I risk losing my YPN account. Strategically, it might be handy to have a YPN account in the future, so in the short term I decided to just drop YPN and go with Google. Google lets me show ads to any visitor.
YPN other publishers such as 7Search (who I had earlier lauded in this blog) apparently lack the will or technology to do their own Geotargeting. They sluff it off on website owners. Its certainly possible, although in convenient and resource intensive, to take the hours necessary to implement OpenAds or screw around with .htaccess files to do what these companies are unwilling to do.
If you've ever tried to make money off of a website, you probably know its not that easy. But having "partners" like YPN or 7Search that force you to do their dirty work doesn't make it easy.
With the purchase of RightMedia, Yahoo acquired the technology to geo-serve ads, as well as the ability to serve unfilled inventory by showing ads from other networks. This acquisition is, by my account, an excellent move by Yahoo.
Some day, I hope to learn that YPN has started doing their own dirty work by geotargeting their own ads. That will make YPN a better partner. That's what I'm saving my YPN account for. Until that day, my YPN account will sit in mothballs, and I will make money with Google instead.
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