Around Christmas of last year, I noted that I was toying with the idea of adding advertisements to KernelTrap [story]. Now the time is approaching quickly, as I've finally gotten around to finishing up the necessary code. This begs the question, what reaction will readers have to seeing text ads and/or banner ads on what up to now has always been advertisement-free pages?

The idea is to display a text ad toward the top of either side column, and banner ads at the top of each page. I will personally verify all banner content, attempting to keep the ads as topical and non-distracting as possible. For example, I have no intention of displaying flash ads or animated gifs.

I'm very interested in feedback from regular readers. Please leave your reflections below.

If you're someone who would consider advertising on KernelTrap yourself, please feel free to drop me a note if you'd like to discuss this privately. Or, leave a comment below as well.

When the KernelTrap advertising program is officially launched, I will release a page with complete details on how much ads cost (per view, per click, etc - still to be fully determined), what types of real time statistics and daily/weekly email summaries are freely available, and other relevant information.

As to why I've decided to sell advertising in the first place, it's in an attempt to increase the quality of this site. I intend to use the generated revenue to purchase original content, much as any magazine does. If all goes as planned, I will be paying authors prices that are competitive to hard-copy computer magazines. Ultimately, the goal is to contribute to open source kernel development by increasing the amount of quality documentation freely available on the Internet.