Monday, April 21, 2008

Orkut Started Showing Google Adsense Ads on User Homepages…

From last few days, I was seeing Google Adsense ads on Orkut users homepage.

Following screenshot highlights ad in lower-right corner which is taken from my friend Vijay’s account…

There are few things to note about these ads which shows Orkut is still not serious about making money out of it!

  1. First they are mix of image as well as text ads. Other Google services show only text ads. Text ads work better and took less time to load.
  2. Its mentioned clearly that they are "Advertisement". In other Google services they put "Sponsored Links" around ads. Sponsored Links could bring more clicks compare to Advertisement caption!
  3. Long time back orkut started showing ads in community pages but now they moved to user homepage directly. Still scrapbook are left clean which is most accessible area of orkut as per orkut trends.

Looks like orkut is still experimenting with these ads, as they are not shown everytime homepage loads. In fact, I haven’t seen any ad on my orkut homepage! It may be because of adblock plus addon, but a fellow blogger Pavan confirmed presence of ads via email around a week ago.

Personally I don’t think these ads are annoying at all. What do you think?

Useful Post: Enjoy Clean & Ad-Free Internet Using Adblock

Further Reading…
  • Enjoy Clean & Ad-Free Internet Using Adblock Plus [Firefox Extension]
  • Orkut Message Cleaner Script!
  • New Orkut Bug Let Spammer Send Any Link Without Image Verification! (Orkut Loves SPAM)
  • Orkut: Collection of hacks to be kool Orkuttian!
  • Earning more with AdSense product referrals without viloating TOS