Some of you may noticed that my blog is now carrying advertising. Rest assured that it is not the desperate grab for cash that it make first look like.
For a long time now, I have been interested in alternative media and Internet publishing. In general, there are three ways you can do this:
- Build up enough content and hope that people will pay some subscription fee (or donation)
- Rely on advertising revenue, be it contextual ads or intrusive flashing banner ads
- Fund it yourself and do it as a hobby
I have always felt that banner ads are a waste of time for both the content provider and the advertiser. They are annoying, intrusive and rarely applicable to the viewer. For example, I am on rsvp.com.au. They have gathered detail information about me through the process of creating a profile. Despite this, I am constantly bombarded with banner ads for products aimed at women.
A few years ago, Google turned the Internet advertising market up on its head by providing context based, text only advertising. In theory, the ads displayed here, will be relevant to the content I write. It sounds like a good idea, but I have no first hand experience so see if it does actually work in this situation. The way the system allocates advertising to my site is totally hands off. That is, I have little control over what ads are displayed on my site and they are certainly not endorsed by me. At the same time, advertisers have no control over what I write on my site. This satisfies many ethical dilemmas that can arise when advertising and content are combined.
For the next few months at least, my blog will continue to carry advertising. This this time I will attempt to post regularly on non personal issues to see if it actually lifts the number of views my site receives each month currently it is in the order of 500 unique visits. If it actually generates some income, that’s great, I can spend more time writing and less time working. If not, at least I will no that there is no money to be made out of independent blogs.