Ad-funded blogs

In my weblogs essay I wrote, “We haven’t seen much in the way of paid advertisements on weblogs.” That changed at the Jupiter conference. Several ad-funded blogs were in evidence. One of the more memorable was AlwaysOn, which inspired one of the panelists to introduce himself as follows: “My name is Michael Moore and I’d like to thank the Academy. I’d also like to say that AlwaysOn sucks! I sit here in protest of their existence.” This to the cheers of many in the crowd. More coverage at AlwaysOn’s heavily popup-laden site. Also in attendance was Gawker, a hip, gossipy Manhattan-centric blog.