Personally, I'm somewhat tired of the commercial blogs myself. I am much more apt to visit a blog about someone's personal life, than say a boing boing; I wish the big media would just leave the "blogosphere" along... and for god sakes, I wish they would stop saying "blogosphere."

I wouldn't call joelonsoftware entirely non-commercial. There's an ad for one of their products on the bottom of every page, and Joel regularly talks about products they are releasing or are working on.

A lot of times popular blogs use the excuse of "I need to cover my bandwidth and hosting charges" which is often hard for the user to complain about, especially when they aren't annoying, flashing banners.

I have Firefox equipped with AdBlock, so I don't see most of the ads anyways.

Commercialism will invade every aspect of technological life. Look back to the days when the first pure advertisements started appearing on Usenet. Then there was an uproar; advertising on weblogs isn't causing so much of a stir.

@Myles:

Pitching your product on your web site isn't advertising, it is expected.

I find it interesting that the progress of blog advertising has been almost exactly parallel with the progress of web advertising starting in 1995 or so.

Phase 1. Just about every site was noncommercial and most were opposed to advertising on the Web. (1994-1997)

Phase 2. Now it's widely accepted and rarely gets a complaint. (1998-2000)

Phase 3. It goes overboard with pop-up ads and takeover ads.
(2000-2002)

Phase 4. Backlash. Even non-geeks start using pop-up blockers. Text ads reappear and rise in popularity. (2002-2004)

It will be interesting to watch as weblogs reach Phases 3 and 4.

I have google ads on my blog (personal, just whatever).

In my own defense they are very unobtrusive and I only added them after I stopped working a "real" job. Not like it's making daddy warbucks of me but eventually I'll get that 100$ check so I can buy cigs and soda. And I've yet to mention the ads in a blog post. They're just there.

I think it would be interesting to see how many personal weblogs contain advertising. I don't find it so objectionable when a blog like PVRblog has advertising on it, but some schmoes online diary or rants about politics with banner ads seems a bit ridiculous.

I wouldn't call joelonsoftware entirely non-commercial. There's an ad for one of their products on the bottom of every page, and Joel regularly talks about products they are releasing or are working on.

I don't want to get too caught up in if one weblog or another is commercial because the precise number isn't that important to the discussion, but I felt Joel on Software was distinct enough from his company to qualify as primarily noncommercial. But the point is well taken...many of the people on the above list promote themselves, their companies, and their work on their sites, myself included.

I was going to write a remark on joelonsoftware, but I see Myles did that already.

If we would agree that every website (in this case - blog) should either make money or help to make money how do blogs stand then?
Author may be not making money by advertising, but he is advertising himself.

So how do you feel about advertising on weblogs? On personal weblogs? What's wrong with defaying the cost of hosting and bandwidth? Hypothetical: what if I put advertising on kottke.org? Would you flip out or would you not mind so much? What if I couldn't continue doing kottke.org without money from advertising? (Note: I'm not actively considering placing advertising on kottke.org...it's just hypothetical.)

What about the money you earn from Amazon referrals? (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but isn't it commercial in a sense?)

I wouldn't call kottke.org entirely noncommercial.. A few years ago the Amazon Associates revenue for this site was almost $100/month. Wonder what it is now..

I don't mind advertising on blogs at all, especially if it allows a quality site to stay up when it might not otherwise. Check out Dooce for a good example of a site that recently added advertisements that aren't one bit annoying. I wouldn't categorize it as a "commercial" site despite the adwords because the primary focus is entertainment, not commerce.

I think that advertising on blogs is great - it allows people to earn a few bucks for what they write. I have advertising on my site (Google Ads) and they do okay but they don't make me mega rich or anything. What they do though is pay for the site entirely, so I no longer have to pay to blog.

This is a good deal in my opinion.

Personally, I think the "I'm paying for bandwidth and hosting" excuse is disingenuous. At most (unless you're hosting all kinds of audio and video files) that's, what, 20 dollars? (and that's if you're getting taken to the cleaners by your hosting company) I would much rather hear someone say, "I'm paying for all the time and effort I've been putting into this for the past 2 years". We all know good content takes time, so if the author isn't in it for the sole purpose of creating good content, I would feel better about them if they just said so.

I wouldn't care if kottke.org had ads. You provide useful information and you shouldn't have to pay for the hosting costs out of your pocket.

I'm always shocked when you have large media files hosted like the Grey Album or the latest video, Cross Fire with Jon Stewart. Maybe I'm wrong, but the bandwidth has to be expensive.

The adblock module for firefox does a good job blocking the google ads anyway ;)

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/*

I was looking at your comments on "artificially popular" weblogs, and I agree with most points. However, I disagree with the Penny Arcade point - the comic is funny, but I spend much more time reading (and looking forward to) their entries than their comics. Many of my friends are of the same opinion. Spend some time reading their weblog sometime - it's pretty damn good stuff, even if you don't care much about video games. Tycho in particular has a fantastic writing style and some great word play. Just a thought ...

On fangs point above, I wonder how many sites would be left if you include those who use Amazon Associates accounts.

A few years ago the Amazon Associates revenue for this site was almost $100/month. Wonder what it is now..

It's actually a bit less...I don't point to Amazon as much as I used to. And it's a fair point, but my defense (perhaps unfair) is that when I link to Amazon, I do so because it's the best link** for what I'm linking to. When there's a better link, I use it. Oh, and when compiling the above list, I also counted sites with tip jars as primarily not commercial. I was most concerned with advertising and overt commercial situations (company blogs, blogs for magazines & newspapers, etc.). If there's too much nitpicking, no one would make the noncommercial cut because most of us are participants in a captial-driven society and everything has something to do with money eventually.

** "Best link" means, in various situations, the most informative, most convenient, or least likely to disappear from the Web.

I guess you could say that my blog is "commercial," even though I don't make any money from it. It's commercial in the same way that "Friends," or "Joey" is commercial...it caters to the masses, regardless of profitability.

We should be careful about categorizing sites in such a black and white way.

-Paul Santos

Actually, I change my mind (sorry), I would categorize my site as non-commercial, since I make more money at my job than I do on my blog ($0). If I made more money on my blog, then I would definitely characterize it as a commercial interest.

-Paul Santos

I've kinda been waiting for you to get around to come up with a novel way to capitalize on kottke.org. It seems like there are a lot possibilities that haven't really been fleshed out yet. I think Amazon Associates is a great example, esp. when used in the way you do it.

Google's ads don't bother me much, but they seem pretty useless on most blogs. You usually see three ads for the same thing, something completly silly, or worse ads for blogging software. (adsense ads for this page)

BB's ads bothered me enough that I've started reading it almost exclusively through netnewswire (filtered w/ boing boing lite.

I want a kottke.org T-Shirt!

I'm one of those artificially popular sites. I'm not ashamed to admit it (okay, maybe a little ashamed). Certainly, I'd like for more of those links to be there because the person really wants to link to me, rather than just because I added it as a default blogroll link in the WP core. If nothing else, it's a way for people to find a site that they might not otherwise have known about. There's certainly no requirement for anybody to keep the link around. I encourage people to cull their blogrolls of sites that they don't regularly visit, even if it's mine ;)

Anyhow, as far as ads go, I resisted putting Google Adsense on my site(s) (two of them) for a long time. But, I don't have any strong opinion on the matter one way or the other. I tend to subconsciously ignore them on most sites that I visit.

If you put ads on your site, it's unlikely that I'd notice the difference.

My guess is that a similar search in 2 years on podcasts will also show that only small percentage "don't feature advertising or are otherwise noncommercial". Just a hunch...

I really think most advertising on blogs is utterly worthless. Look at Kottke here--at one point he made $100 a month or so in Amazon advertising. $100 a month! I've got one place where I link to something I've bought on Amazon on my blog, and it's always a text link. I'll also have a link embedded in my post if I happen to be talking about the product. Hell, I even have a silly “tip jar” (PayPal Donate link), not that anyone has ever donated anything. Yes, and I link to an Amazon business I have; but it’s a 32x32 icon at the top (along with other personal site related icons) and a tiny text link at the bottom (redundant links from the top). Either way, the time it takes to do this is simply too long and not worth the money. I don't know where you guys stand, but if I'm not making $18 an hour doing something--I won't do it. It's just not worth it.

And furthermore, anyone who tells me "it covers the cost of my blogging" is utterly ridiculous. You could make the same money working half a day at McDonald’s. Maybe if you run your own server or something, but then again, you’d be earning revenue from others utilizing your bandwidth.

The fact of the matter is, owning a blog is a personal desire, not a commercial endeavor. And for it to become a personal endeavor will require massive advertising like BoingBoing. So either go all the way, or don’t waste your time for $20. People read your blog because of its content—not what it advertises. I’m going to make the assumption Jason was thinking the same thing when he cut back on Amazon links. And if he did add ads like BoingBoing, I’d be annoyed—unless, of course, they were personal endorsements and/or suggestions and ideas.

I similar thoughts about advertising at LA Blogs a few weeks ago. I think that having ads on a site inherently causes the author to create content that they wouldn't have done otherwise. Rather than posting interesting links and commentary, people get wrapped up in making more posts to drive up traffic.

I'm "artificial" but I only show ads to people who have never left a comment or otherwise participated in my blog. Those people never click ads anyway, so why waste space and clutter things with ads? Most of the hosting for my site and wordpress.org comes out of my pocket and most months the Google ads from my site (plus donations) balance that out. I don't like the ads, but I don't apologize for them either.

>Now it's accepted to the point where I haven't heard anyone complain about it in months...

Well, there's this and this to consider.

For me, the moment came and went when I took a piss in a bar and found myself reading the fine print on a mobile phone ad. There's no escaping it.

This thread renews my interest in micropayments. PayPal and Amazon don't seem to accomplish very much in the way of getting subscription fees (donations) to the writers and photographers responsible for so many interesting sites. Has there been any modeling of a system whereby visiting a blog (or, as in my case, a pseudo-blog) would cost five or ten cents (or even less!), automatically shifted à la PayPal from one account to another? I would venture that very few people visit only one other site. Can the resource providers (Moveable Type, &c) be enlisted?

I'm also surprised not to find Talking Points Memo on the Top 100 list.

I'm surprised no one mentioned that even Zeldman has some advertisements. It's quite subtle, but I noticed the immediate change the week LinkSynergy and Apple announced the iTunes referral program. Zeldman now links to the free download, reaping money if you purchase songs in addition to it. Minor, I know, but I'm sure it's bringing in something.

but I think the "ads & pro blogs vs everything else" distinction is useful

Let's see. I run Google ads and make ~$1.50/month (9% of hosting costs). It took me two minutes to insert the ads in my template. You make ~$80/month (for argument's sake) with Amazon referrals and you have to include "0sil8" every time you make a link. Maybe MTAmazon does that last part for you, though I'm sure you wouldn't have that installed just to enhance your referral traffic.

Anyway. I don't have a problem with you making money from kottke.org. You deserve it more than many of the other Top 100. Hell, I've even bought a couple of books using your referral links. But if I'm on the "ads & pro blogs" side of the equation, then you certainly are too.

I don't think anyone would flip out if ads popped up here. I think I like the fact your site is clear of them however. I have considered maintaining a web site a hobby. Hobbies can be pricey.

I think in some cases perhaps bandwidth costs are a reason to put ads up. However, I suspect that in many cases, it is the capitalist within that is the real cause of their existence. I mean, putting up ads is painless, and it's basically money for nothing in many cases. It's hard not to get sucked up into that.

We, the poor little guys...

Here we are stooping to the level of commenting in a thread belonging to one of the Big100, hoping he, and others, might grace our page with a click. Or a link!

Then surely our AdSense revenue will skyrocket!

But seriously, I think a lot of commenting has turned into a good excuse for people to forcefully put their link onto someone else's page. How much of commenting is just adding to the noise of advertising in a very subtle manner?

commerce is a naturally emergent phenomenon
in any sufficiently advanced community system.

heideger + habermas = mobile phone

it's okay to have advertising.

when it's gets too much, your readers
will find a quiter place to read.

it's all cool.

I don't see any problem with adverts - blogs are no different from other communications tools. I don't care if someone wants to make a little (to cover their hosting costs) or alot (to make a profit) money from the ads. As a consumer of all wesbites I have the choice to use AdBlock or simply not visit a site that uses ads. Planethalder.

I generally don't mind ads, as I'm blocking them anyways. But is it really necessary to have google text ads between every single post, as seen on that abercrombiechick blog? It's a site hosted by blogger, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but blogger is a free service, right? No bandwidth, no webspace or any of that stuff to pay for. I think once your ads interfere with the usability of your site, it's time to just stop.

Being somebody who runs a blog that has advertising on it, I though I'd throw in my 2 cents worth. Personally I'd argue that just because a blog contains adverts, it doesn't make it commercial. I see a commercial blog as one where the purpose of the site is to make money. There are a few blogs such as those run by Nick Denton and Paul Scrivens where this is the case, however the vast majority of blogs are, and always will be, non commercial.

Sure site owners put up ads as they can help off-set their hosting costs (I'm currently paying over $60 a month for my hosting and bandwidth) and maybe even get the odd free computer book, CD or DVD off Amazon. Some bloggers used to ask for donations to help cover their costs, however the donations rarely came flooding in. That's because people expect content on the web to be free, even if there is a material cost to publishers. The motivation behind these blogs isn't to make money, and I doubt it ever will be.

As such I think it's unfair to assume that just because you place AdSense ads on your site, you'll suddenly become biased. If Google did something I thought was wrong, it wouldn't stop me from saying so if I felt it was appropriate. I definitely wouldn't not mention it for fear of upsetting them and losing my ads, so I don't see where the bias is.

Since we're not counting the non-blogs on the top 100, that's 16 out of how many "real" blogs that don't have ads? Just wondering. I think one good thing about AdSense is that you don't have a direct relationship with an advertiser - so you don't (can't?) feel obliged to change your content just to suit them. I think people resign themselves to advertising as a necessary evil much as they do with TV. It disrupts the aesthetics I think, but I'd agree with Andy Budd above that it doesn't really spoil the underlying self-publishing ethos. Now the Nick Denton stable on the other hand...

Somewhat tangentially, one thing I've noticed is that spammers are actually setting up entire fake blogs on Blogspot just to take advantage of Blogger's "next blog" button on their new navigation bar - it'll be entire blogs that say nothing but "home equity loans" or something (see this Blogger's profile). Clearly the commercial world - whether we're talking about the high end, the cutting edge, or the bottom feeders - has spotted the potential of the blogging world.

I guess I could put advertising on my blog. I've thought about it. But I've avoided it, mostly because I don't want the blog to be a "medium" for anybody but myself.

I think of my blog as a public form of email: kind of a "To: Whomever." So you might say I don't put ads in my blog for the same reason I don't put ads in my email. It would be in bad taste.

I also think it's a drag on whatever horsepower the blog has, just being itself. It's an energy fork. It shunts blog energy -- journalistic energy -- off to some other purpose that's not my own.

Some, of course, have a second purpose on their blog, in making money. Which is fine. Yet I think I make more money because of my blog than I could ever make with my blog.

That said, I have no beef with people who do put ads on their blogs. If it works for them and their readers, cool. It's just not for me.

I am, however, open to other opinions. It's an interesting topic. That's one reason I'm moderating the Making Money session at Bloggercon. Details here.

I think AdSense really changed the non-commercial web world permanently. Let's face it: nobtrusive, context-sensitive ads are a nice way to pay for your hosting costs without making your site appear overly commercial.

Gawd, I just can't stand some blogs that have ads, like already mentioned googlde edsense betwene each posting on a FREE blogger thing, with just the same old "start your own blog" ads in them. They're annoying. They're in the way.
But that's not really what bothers me, as so many said we can all get them to magically dissapear with software of all sorts. It's the idea of someone blogging for their own personal fun with the usual journal type entries, including a few about their breakfast and how tired they are.. And then they slap a bunch of ads on top of that. What? Ok, let me carefully de-click this little journal away from my bookmarks and never return. Your breakfast is not that interesting.
Now for big massive traffic places, then.. Hmm. I'm torn in those cases. Metafilter has ads, and since I'm a member - ha- I don't see most of them. I like that.
I'd rather buy a neat Kottke t-shirt than see a single annoying textad on this site. I really have begun to despise those textads. Horrid little things.
How much does a blogger accounts bandwidth cost anybody?

Did anybody really think that Blogs would be the last frontier/where advertisers would not tread? naive thinking....

Let me just put it this way - I don't read blogs with the overstuffed advertising with content formats unless directed to a particularly interesting post. Those things aren't written by people, they're commercialised biased products. Whilst I can understand the motivation behind placing the ads on the site in the first place, it often ruins the whole practice of blogging - that is, people writing about what they want, when they want. It taints the way my brain reacts to site aesthetics and content, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I guess I don't mind the odd google ad or small unprovocative banner ad though, because I do read sites/blogs with those featured.

Yes yes, exactly!

And what about feeds ? Some blogs and sites that are too overstuffed with ads I read the feeds of instead. Now I find myself navigating past the *ads* in teh feeds. There is no escape!

a) AdSense is not "advertising" in the traditional sense. I am sorry but I don't see AdSense as being the same as those truly annoying banner ads, walking pop-ups or other major colorful items standing in my view. When you work and refine your site so that the AdSense can do is job effectively, you get some really outstanding complementary information, just as valuable as related articles or relevant books rolls. This adds value to the content, it does not intrude, and provides potentially wonderful matches between advertisers and publishers that would have been very hard to achieve otherwise.

b) Blogs can be better categorized as commercial, in my very personal opinion, when they have little ethic, no personality or character, and when they stand behind no ideals. Though there weren't many such blogs, there is a growing number of them. Blogs, as a matter of fact should have always been identified by the character and style of their writers rather than by the technology they employed. So, that solves the problem at its start, as you can clearly say that purely profit-driven blogs are really commercial news sites (I don't think anyone would be offended). One good example is the growing network of Movable Type blogs that make the Lockergnome.com empire. Though these are supposedly "blogs" since they do post news items in reverse chronological order, they have evolved much beyond that stage, first becoming group blogs and realizing their best abilities now as effective commercial news sites.

c) The issue raised by Jason Kotke at the beginning of his piece when he reports "... increasingly false perception of blogs as inherently unbiased by commercial interests". This is not a false perception by my own standards. Point is, what is the reference that we are using to say something is biased or not. Well, I am using mainstream traditional media online, the type that asks for a registration, doesn't use readers as reporters, doesn't allow for open comments or trackbacks on their articles and still makes large use of banner ads and intrusive pop-ups to garnish the largest share of its income. So, if I look at the blogs I read, with or without Google AdSense ads displayed, I have a much greater sense of trust for the authors behind them, and I perceive them as much more credible and sincere than any of the mainstream media sites.

More than anything, I find the blogger personality, much more competent than any average traditional journalist online or off.


d) "The continuing shift from blogging as a hobby to blogging for a variety of reasons." This should come as no surprise. When adopting a new technology humans go always through a neophyte phase in which they experiment, play and explore the new discovered tool. It is only later that we are able to better conceptualize and understand its best possible uses, and then to integrate them in our personal daily life. Right now we are still transitioning from having discovered blogs to fully understanding their best applications and uses.


e) Just another anonymous kook commented that "The fact of the matter is, owning a blog is a personal desire, not a commercial endeavor." But who said that? What about craftsmen and anyone having a real, high-quality business in the pre-industrial era. Isn't that what real business used to be? And isn't this to be considered even a higher form of business expression? Think of jewelers, designers, car mechanics, investigators, nurses, (some) doctors and a thousand other professions. Aren't these people following a personal desire/passion while going about making a personally profitable and socially valuable business? So, why shouldn't this apply to the Web too?

f) And as Jonah made this popular comment: "having ads on a site inherently causes the author to create content that they wouldn't have done otherwise. Rather than posting interesting links and commentary, people get wrapped up in making more posts to drive up traffic." Again, it depends. Commercial news sites have all the right to do so, so maybe it is just me and you being stuck with wanting to classify them as blogs. Two, you may also see a different smarter pattern at work: authors that want to capitalize on their reporting passion will write more extensively and in depth about their preferred topics as this is the only way that you can get more and more people to read your content. It seems fairly evident that the moment you deviate from being as sharp, direct and timely as you used to be, readers will notice, and given the amount of good alternatives will not need more than a few clicks to replace "too shallow" (what you call too commercial) with "in-depth".

g) Finally, for those who are still thinking about charging mini-amounts for allowing people to read their content, please think again. This is another utterly counterlogical road. Let the content be free, extend reach and visibility as a consequence and offer premium content, anthologies, guides, and re-edited essays as one alternative content income stream. AdSense is not the only monetization opportunity out there, and that there are other serious alternative options to be considered when trying to make your reporting passion a sustainable and professionally executed online business.

Read more here.

Yeah, what about the money you earn from Amazon referrals?

I'm curious as to whether you all are against ads on blogs are just websites in general. No one wants to look at the ads, but neither does anyone want to pay for the content. You can't have it both ways. How do you expect these online publishers to be compensated for their hard work? The Internet Fairy?

What's gonna happen to the free information highway once everyone has adblocker turned on?