DISQUS

Well, to address one of the questions posed, it is possible to earn revenue without display ads.

I don't know if it can be similar in scale, but there are things such as inline linking (not sure of the real name but they often have double underlines on key words), selling links if you want to risk annoying Google's search engine and perhaps some other similar methods that might pass the ad blocker software.

Obviously, as somebody showing ads, I certainly understand that many sites, mine included, would be gone if there was no hope of earning revenue from Adsense or display advertising.

Those who only want content need to understand that the quality of the content is going to be directly related to how much incentive the people producing the content have. It takes time and effort to craft a message, package it nicely, and develop the expertise to provide useful insights.

However, I don't expect attitudes to change. Even if all the content on the web was reduced to made for adsense splogs I'm sure these people would just assume that lower quality content was even less worthy of displaying ads...

I've been able to develop a small readership, and have a number of blogs, but monetization appears to be a problem for me.

I'm hoping it is my niche and logically it would make sense. Anyway, great post, consider it bookmarked (and soon linked).

Canadian startups? Who knew? :p

Canadian startups? Who knew? :p

I can certainly agree that I don't like it if I get a sales pitch for something that I don't want. Perhaps my head is stuck in a point of view based on having a product in one hand and a telephone in the other hand?

Perhaps part of the problem arises due to forging a new path?

I mean, the issues faced by collaborative blog networks within a period of rapidly changing advertising models are probably still at the point of needing customized solutions.

Anyway, certainly not trying to be disagreeable, but maybe there simply is no market yet? Perhaps you could get in touch with product development, instead of sales, and twist their ears for a while.

While I see your point I do think it is difficult (read: costly) to have an individual conversation in advance with every potential customer.

All a company that is doing advertising cares is that they get a certain percentage of people by trying to talk to people that are in their market.

I'm very leery of the language of "getting it" since business realities are driven by profitability, or math. At some point things either work or they don't and getting it may not be part of the equation.

Thinking about an ongoing project or goal as you are going to sleep is also a good way to wake up with a solution. I used to do this when I was confronted with difficult problems to solve during the earlier days of my career.

The funny part, if you are lucky enough to notice this effect, is that you can be incredibly productive and competent without having to work hard, you just need the discipline to apply this concept.

I'm not as career driven as I used to be though...

Hmm, raise your price and offer a complete end to end service?

Basically, if you are affluent and have lots of money, it's cheap to you, so you want to throw some money at a problem and simply have it be solved by someone you can trust to make the right decisions for you.

Now, to get to the point where I am affluent and can toss money at end to end services...