Ads on Blogs? No Way!
First off, I’d like to thank my sponsors for supporting me and my blog through tough times. Except not really.
Many of you have heard the news: Robert Scoble is finally putting blogs on his website! And of course, this means that many people are criticizing him for taking back his previous opinion on putting ads on blogs. In a nutshell, the two of us held the same opinion: That advertisements on blogs don’t make enough money to be worthwhile. Only that his opinion has changed, and I’m not sure if mine has too. I look up to the guy and I think about every word he says.
Think about it: I’m a poor college student paying over $45K a year to go to school per year while blogging during my lunch breaks. If I put up some sponsorships on my website, maybe I could afford some new gadgets and pay off those (non-existent) financial aid loans!
Yet again, I could live without a new MacBook Air. So for now, unless any of you guys insist, I’ll keep my blog ad-free. 
Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She’s currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:58 am
You know, I would actually like to have some adds on my blog,(as long as they’re not too big) it’s just so unpopular. Well, maybe not unpopular, but not known about
January 30th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Ads or not, that’s your call. But remember that ads are part of the design and if you design sucks…
What’s really troubling is that you look up to Scoble. I could see following what he says and maybe having an opinion on that, either agreeing or disagreeing. But Scoble has done zero worth looking up to. He should be looking up to you.
Just my not-so-humble opinion.
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Ads are fine, but I doubt you’ll make much from them. Unfortunately, monetizing ad space can be a problem of scale.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
So, I came across your blog (a friend of mine is one of your new additions to the indinero development team)… As Dempsey said, why do you look up to Scoble? IMHO, he is an idiot. I could list a thousand reasons for that so I will not go into that here.
It’s also a really bad assumption that ads will not make enough money to be worthwhile. Just think about Darren Rowse from Problogger.net. He’s making around $200k per year. Guess how? Surprise! Ads! Does this mean that he loses respect? No. Rowse has a HUGE following.
Me on the other hand… I’m pretty much in the same boat as you. I’m a student at UPenn and it is expensive as hell. I have a site that gets less than 10k unique views per month, but it still generates 4 figure monthly revenues from ads (not a joke!). Now imagine the revenue potential with your 85k unique views per month (as stated in your CV).
Just think outside the box… imagine how much seed money you would have for your tech startup ideas if you generated thousands of dollars in passive income. People who are truly loyal readers will not mind that you have a couple of ads in your sidebar. They will understand your position and that you need it. The ones who say shit to you for putting ads are just jealous. Don’t just think Google AdSense, Bidvertiser, or other CPC platforms. There are tons of great CPM advertising options out there.
Just my two cents