Independent Days
John Gruber recently wrote a long ramble about earning money as an Independent web publisher. He makes a lot of good points. Notably, that there’s a lot of great content on the independent web that’s worth money, a lot people wouldn’t mind seeing some of that money, and advertising, the way in which many can make that money, works.
I have two concerns about advertisements on the independent web that are difficult for me to get past.
- You don’t have absolute control over what ads are shown on your site. John pointed out over email that you can blacklist advertisers you don’t want, but what about the advertisements that end up on your site? Can anyone say with full assurance that all of the Google ads appearing on their site are from legitimate sources? Can Google guarantee that evil isn’t going to happen because of ads appearing on your website? I doubt that’s mentioned in their terms of service.
- They can potentially make otherwise beautiful websites, such as John’s, look horrible. If they blended into the design, or even better, were part of the design, I would be much more accepting of them. The Mirror Project is a great example of a site that has ads which are creatively integrated with the site’s design.
Until someone creates an ad service that doesn’t compromise my ethics or design, I’m not giving in.
- 9 Jul 03
- advertising, blogging, ethics, google
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