It’s been a long time coming but I finally decided to put a few ads on my blog. Basically, I’m hoping to make enough money to cover hosting.
I’ve thought about doing this for a while and have held out until for for a number of reasons.
A large part of it is that I don’t want to look like Nascar. I’ve been trying to figure out what the right mix is and how much real estate I should devote to it.
One of the huge blocking issues has been that I didn’t have any control over the ads that some company might be posting on my we site. I’m joining the Lounge by Infozerk because it’s run by James Avery, a guy that I trust, and his ads are targeted at a particular developer segmentation and they are screened personally by him. That’s a combination that I like.
The other thing that I like a lot about the Lounge is that I’m in a “room” with a lot of other developers with similar topics and thoughts. This is a great set of guys that includes Jim Holmes (no relation but I’d be proud to claim him), Steven Harman (Fellow geek and ALT.NET enthusiast), Michael Eaton (Great speaker and consultant from Michigan) and so on. This means that we can get together and decide not to allow a particular advertiser. That’s cool. It also means that these advertisers are able to look at the set of people that they are sponsoring and make intelligent decisions about their audience and if they are the right fit. I like that as well. It’s also good because I’m basically in a room with a lot of my blogroll…
Quick summary:
- Payment will cover my hosting costs at least
- The advertisers are carefully screened and are all companies that I’m happy to support on my blog
- The network is carefully screened and consists of many people I respect in the development community
- James Avery is running it and will make sure the other three continue to be true
Now, to be honest, I’m not in the “big boy room” with Haack, Jon Galloway and the like but I’m in with good company.
All in all, I think that the Lounge is a good fit for me. High quality advertisers and high quality publishers associated with it.
James posted about it at Lounge Update : Infozerk Inc.
<update>The original post had Hanselman in it but Avery pointed out that Hanselman is not advertising through the Lounge so he’s not one of the guys in the “big boy room” at the Lounge either. I should have done the update post rather than an edit – and Hanselman has rightly called me out on that in email.</update>