Is this an ad?

Yep. RealFaviconGenerator now displays an ad at the top of each page. I don't feel the need to justify this decision but I'd like to comment it.

Donations

First, let's talk about money. Since June 2014, RFG has a Paypal Donate button for users who want to support the service. I've already thanked them personally but let me seize the opportunity of this post to say:

Thanks you guys!!!!!

Seriously. This is amazing. I picture a user who just spent a minute or two on RFG and, while downloading his package, actually goes through the Paypal process to give money for something free anyway. Free and small: let's face it, RFG saves only an hour of your life, not your life itself.

How many? Well, I didn't make serious stats. RFG received nearly 100 donations in 8 months, with a slow down recently. I think regular users willing to give have already did it. How much? I think the record was set to $25. Wow. Most donations are something like $5. In the end, donations barely cover the hosting costs.

I received a mail last week suggesting to accept bitcoins, which I did. Now I'm waiting for the millions.

To conclude with donations, I must admit this is not my preferred way to earn money from a web site. One user out of a few thousands gives a significant amount of money while all the others get the service for free. To this respect, I like the spirit of Flattr, a micro donation service. As a consumer, you allocate a monthly donation budget: $2, $4... your choice. Each time you want to support a web site, a blogger, a Youtuber or whoever, you Flattr-like him. At the end of the month, your budget is divided among the people you liked. I would find way fairer to get a few cents from 1% of my users instead of 5$ from 0.01% users. Unfortunately, Flattr didn't receive the audience it deserves (yet?).

Ads are more in line with the previous paragraph. Of course, this is not "giving" anymore. But each user pays with the little bit of attention the ad requires. A really small prize paid by everyone (you don't use AdBlocker, do you?).

I discovered CarbonAds in the Bootstrap web site. Their ads were light, non-intrusive and technical-oriented. So I put this in my "maybe later" list. A few days ago, I contacted CarbonAds to give it a try. Some code to copy/paste, some style to add and here it is. Now I'm looking at the stats.

Maybe I'll test AdSense, too.

The future

Well, I don't know. At least there are two things I'm sure of.

First, I would like to make money from RFG. I think the service is useful. It fills a gap in web development. A small gap. So it won't make me rich, but I want my small bucks.

Whatever happens, RealFaviconGenerator as it is today will remain free. In other words, whatever you do for free with RFG today will still be free tomorrow. No premium options, no API calls limit or stuff like this. This is a question of ethic. If I had planned to "close" the platform at some point, I would have had to mention it. This reminds me of MakerBot and their switch from open-source hardware to closed-source. Part of the community felt betrayed. Going from closed to open is obviously okay, and keeping closed is okay, too. But giving then taking back is not. And definitely not something I will do.

Ok, so, do you like the new ads? :)