Re: [cgiapp] Ad Server

["Matthew Weier O'Phinney" <suppressed>]

On 4/26/05, Michael Peters <suppressed> wrote:
> Joel Gwynn wrote:
> > So the ads are inserted via javascript and not interpreted php?  What
> > are the non-javascript options, just out of curiousity.
> 
> It really shouldn't be that hard to write a one mode C::A that would
> randomly pick an ad and send it to the browser. If you use mod_rewrite
> (or mod_perl) you can even make anyone looking at the source think it's
> just a normal jpg.
> 
> Something like:
> 
>   <img src="/random_ad.jpg" />
> 
> And then in your httpd.conf (using mod_rewrite)
> 
>   RewriteRule ^/random_ad\.jpg$/  /my_add.cgi [R,L]
> 
> And even if you don't have access to the httpd.conf you can still do
> 
>   <img src="/my_add.cgi" />

Yes, but if you've ever used a full-fledged ad manager, you'd know that they
provided much more than just random banners. For example:

* Reporting
* Scheduling -- automatic put-up and take-down of ads based on date, number of
  views, and/or number of clicks
* Weighted rotations, based on number of scheduled views and/or weights.
* Limiting an ad to one hit per visitor, or one hit per visitor per day

We use phpadsnew where I work, and it's an incredible tool. However, one thing
we've run into is that we have some ads that appear on our website that we also
include in newsletter mailings (no, not spam... I know what you're all
thinking!), and unfortunately phpadsnew requires that a cookie be set in order
to track hits by visitor. My understanding is that there is a fork of phpadsnew
that has a system for newsletter mailings, and we'll likely be checking that
out.

As other's have mentioned, phpadsnew spits out some javascript that you then put
in your template. You can also do non-javascript implementations, if you do not
require any interstitials or appended text; this is our typical delivery method,
actually.

(We actually use my PHP port of Cgiapp, and even with running PHP already, we
use the 'remote' invocation that spits out the HTML and/or javascript simply
because it's easier to integrate with the templates, and less hassle overall.)

-- 
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
suppressed
http://weierophinney.net/matthew/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Web Archive:  http://www.mail-archive.com/suppressed/
              http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=cgiapp&r=1&w=2
To unsubscribe, e-mail: suppressed
For additional commands, e-mail: suppressed