As of this post, you’ll notice a new right-hand sidebar featuring the ubiquitous Laughing Squid logo, my Metblogs posts, and a new column of text ads. My friends have been pushing me for a while now to sell ad space here, and I’ve been staunchly against it because I’m opposed to commodifying my message. But one argument won out: more and more, all I want to do is blog, rather than chase down freelance dollars — so I agreed to try out making a few bucks with AdBrite to see if it’s possible for me to do what I really want, which is write here, in this space. I mean, I blog for lots of others for little or no money and they are making cash off of ads, so in a way it seems silly not to try and do the same for myself.
I’m still considering this an experiment. I chose AdBrite because they give me complete control of whose ad is on my site; I’ve handpicked each of the advertisers after visiting their sites; it was funny to add CheapFlights to my ad list after having subscribed to their newsletter for years. Some I selected as new-media marketing curiosities/anomalies, like the “internet TV for men”. I have made the ads text-only, and they will always be that way. If you hate them, email me and I’ll remove the advertisers, or stop altogether. And if you’re running Firefox like I am, you won’t even see them. I also picked AdBrite because they are inclusive of over-18 sites, which to me, is a sensible, grown-up business model. More of my thoughts on that are in this article.
If you want to negotiate a wee piece of art like the Laughing Squid logo, email me.
