Skunkworks

One of the reasons I started this blog was to see if is possible to make a living from online advertising. Short answer: The way I do it, it isn’t . If you browse my site without an adblocker you will see that I have a sidebar with google adsense. You will also see that the sidebar is not respecting almost all the best practices in placement, format and so on. Without going into details is sufficient to say that in the almost 2 years since I have this site, I didn’t got any money from Google yet, because there are not enough in my adsense account . Also you need to know that the site is costing me almost nothing. Is something like 25 Euros per year.

Now that you have the facts let me give you some insight.
Some time ago I got an offer to publish some adverts on my site. I told that company that depending on the types of sites and the money offered I may be interested. I got an offer back. I presume is a decent offer, but I choose not to go further.
Why? Try to spot the adverts on these sites: http://www.rubyrailways.com/ and http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/05/10/70-expert-ideas-for-better-css-coding/ . I did not put the actual links here, because I do not want to back link to those sites. I am pretty sure what that company is doing is legal, but I am 100% sure is not moral.

I am sure you will have a hard enough time to spot the adverts. If you can’t just let me know in a comment and I will put you on the right track.

Everybody would say because the customers want it. After I have seen a demo of the Google services page optimized for Iphone I am sure that Google is the real reason. Is clear that by using the same web browser like Iphone (webkit) any Android based device would have access to any Iphone optimized site the same way the Iphone does. Apple had to release an SDK to try to match Google efforts in this area.