{"id":385,"date":"2019-06-17T13:12:48","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T13:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomadicmatt.com\/?p=173910"},"modified":"2019-07-01T13:12:48","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T13:12:48","slug":"ads-on-this-site-what-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/17\/ads-on-this-site-what-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Ads? On this Site? What? Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
\nPosted:<\/strong> 7\/1\/2019 | July 1st, 2019<\/p>\n

For eleven years, I vowed never to put an ad up on this website. None. Zero. Zilch. <\/p>\n

I hate ads. They are ugly. They are intrusive, sometimes popping up right when you load a page. (And don\u2019t get me started on pre-roll videos!)<\/p>\n

So it might seem odd that today, after eleven years being ad-free, I’m announcing we\u2019ve put ads up on this website.<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019ve been so vocal about how much I dislike ads, I want to explain to the community why we\u2019re doing this:<\/p>\n

The world changes. People change. People\u2019s buying habits change.<\/p>\n

And, to be a successful business, you must change too<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Over the years, we put a lot of our eggs into the ebook\/digital guide<\/a> basket. <\/p>\n

That worked for a long time. <\/p>\n

But the cold hard truth people don\u2019t really buy ebooks these days. They want Kindle books or physical guidebooks. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the world wants. <\/p>\n

Plus, with so much free information online, most people just don\u2019t feel the need to buy ebooks anymore. They can often google what they need. If it\u2019s not in a Kindle or paper form, it\u2019s not a \u201creal\u201d guidebook. (We\u2019ve looked into making paper guides but, frankly, the print on demand paper quality isn\u2019t there. It\u2019s just not at the quality that we can be proud of. And, to print in color, the costs are just too high right now.)<\/p>\n

So our ebook sales have flatlined. They\u2019re no longer an engine of growth that can fuel new projects. <\/p>\n

And we have a great project in the works that needs fuel. <\/p>\n

Remember The Nomadic Network<\/a>? The global meet-up thing we tested out a few years back. We were going to build local chapters, host educational and social mixers, and get people excited about travel. <\/p>\n

Well, this fall, we are bringing it back to life. <\/p>\n

But we need money to make that happen. <\/p>\n

One thing we learned last time we trialed this was that we need a dedicated person whose job is just to run the events and coordinate with all our local chapters. <\/p>\n

The revenue from our book sales isn\u2019t going to cover that. <\/p>\n

The team and I searched far and wide for an alternative \u2014 but the truth is that ads are the only thing that can give us the substantial and sustained revenue we need to relaunch the Nomadic Network as well as maintain and grow this website. (We would like to pay more guest writers and hire another research assistant.)<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s why we now have ads. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not simply so we can have more money (or Chris can finally upgrade from sleeping in dorms). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s so we can relaunch this community initiative (one we are really, really excited about but have put aside for way too long) and invest in the website. <\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s a big change and we tried to make the ads as non-intrusive as possible. <\/p>\n

But know that this decision didn\u2019t come easy. I still have mix feelings about it but the world changes and sometimes you just have to change with it.<\/p>\n

Feel free to leave comments below (but know we\u2019re not going to reverse this decision).<\/p>\n

Sincerely, <\/p>\n

Nomadic Matt and team<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Ads? On this Site? What? Why?<\/a> appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted: 7\/1\/2019 | July 1st, 2019 For eleven years, I vowed never to put an ad up on this website. None. Zero. Zilch. I hate ads. They are ugly. They are intrusive, sometimes popping up right when you load a page. (And don’t get me started on pre-roll videos!) So it might seem odd that […]<\/p>\n

The post Ads? On this Site? What? Why?<\/a> appeared first on Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourfunjourney.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}