May 25, 2005

A Bit of Irony | Further reason why I doubt I will ever succumb to Google's AdSense program

This isn’t meant to suggest that I think others are wrong for participating in the mentioned program… but after reading a recent Tim Bray post in which I completely agreed with his point to then turn and notice some interesting ads that Google decided to serve-up:

[ITEM 2]

But a few paragraphs in, the science-for-sale dimension starts screaming out from between the lines. It turns out that the research from the some of the people talking up the benefits of moderate sunshine is funded by the Indoor Tanning Association, while on the other side the Sun Safety Alliance (funded in part by Coppertone) is backing the research of the all-sun-is-bad party. Is there anything left that’s not for sale?

Reading this and then seeing the ads served up simply caused me to wonder even more as to whether or not I could ever participate in this program at any level.

Again, please don’t assume that I am condemning the use of AdSense… I’m not… I just found this to be both funny and ironic considering the post questioned whether everything in this world was for sale…

[NOTE: I have a HUGE amount of respect for Tim; without a doubt one of my more favorite people on this planet, and for VERY GOOD reason! As such I really hope I haven’t given the impression that I think this is something bad on his part. I don’t at all. I just found it to be more the reason why I need to consider the fact that as far as I know, I have no control over what Google might place as ad’s other than having a general idea that they will be related to keywords that have the highest keyword-match-to-$value rating such that Google (and subsequently myself as I am assuming that a percentage is paid out as opposed to a flat fee for each click? I really don’t know for sure as I haven’t looked far enough into it) will have the greatest chance of profitability by posting one particular keyword-based ad over another. The problem I have with this is what happens when, like this above graphic represents, the ads that are chosen to be placed against my entry happen to advertise the very product or company that I just took the time to suggest not-such-great-things about? The fact that, for the most part you can bid your way to the top, or at very least the top 4 spots means that after seeing a post I write anybody could then go and bid themselves into the keyword set that Google labeled for this post (just looking at the ads that are currently served should be enough to know where to start bidding.) So what then when someone who deserves to be slammed creates an ad that links to a bunch of lies as a way of trying to defend there position and bids it to the top of the keyword list. Has the post then lots all or even just some of its potential punch?

Is this a conflict of interest in anybody else’s viewpoint or am I just being over-paranoid about this subject and simply need to not let things like this bother me? My current belief is that I’m not being over-paranoid but I am leaving plenty of room open for the possibility that I might. I guess I could just never post any derogatory remarks…

Um, can I just say: HELL NO!!!

That would be like cutting off my right arm and left leg or telling me not to breath… Venting can be a very effective way to get things out of your mind and as such out of the way of keeping you from moving on with your day… And further more this would MOST DEFINITELY give reason for the sell-out attribute to be added to my blog class:

    [SellOut]
    public class BlogEntry XSLTBlog : ICorporateSellOut {

        private string entryContent;

        public XSLTBlog() { }

        public AddEntry(string content){

        String[] mostProfitableKeywords = Google.get_MostProfitableKeywords("foo", "bar", true);
        int i;
        string keywordIteration = "keywords";
        for (i = 0; i < mostProfitableKeywords.Length; i++){
        keywordIteration = keywordIteration + ", " +  mostProfitableKeywords[i];
        }

        if (HasValue(content) this.entryContent = content;
        else this.entryContent = 
                "A bunch of worthless crap," +
                " don't even bother reading it... instead please" +
                " select from one of the ads related to the following" +
                " keywords" + keywordIteration;
                }

        private bool HasValue(string content){
            return ValidateValue(content);
        }

        private bool ValidateValue(string content){
            Foo fooBar = new Foo();
            fooBar.Parse(content);
            return fooBar.DoesThisHaveValue;
            //I think I'll stop here and I think you probably get the point :)
        }

    }

BTW…. no I didn’t compile this to ensure it was valid as I know for a fact its not given I would have had to write at very least a stub Google class… Please just accept the fact that its possible the above has some blatantly obvious errors… To be honest I don’t know if it does as I havent even re-read it nor do I care if it does as its not really sample code… If you find an error and this bothers you to the point that you just can’t stand it… by all means, fix it and send it back my way… Otherwise, I’m not changing a damn thing ;) [UPDATE: It wasn’t that difficult in quickly passing over this post again that I did leave out the “class” keyword… This, of course caused me to notice “validateValue” instead of “ValidateValue” and the fact that the string the climaxed the point of writing this foo code in the first place extended past the viewable area, and etc… See this is why I can’t let myself look at it again as then my own tendencies to be bothered by sloppy code set-in and I have to fix it immediatelly or it’ll drive me nutts until I do… I think its a common trait amongst hackers as it seems we all tend to be a little nit picky when it comes to things of this nature…]

Ok, moving on…

The one thing I really do need to verify is whether or not you are able to use standard “-keyword(s)” to exclude ads that are of a particular keyword(s). If that were the case then this might be worth reconsideration. Lately I have been putting some serious thought into several possible career morph’s, moving away, a bit at a time, from consulting and contracting and more towards content development (online and offline) as well as producing several daily blogxast’s [Tonight Kurt and I are recording the first installment in the “Life from a different perspective” series I announced a few weeks ago as after a very successful dry run for about an hour and half a few days ago I feel very good about moving things forward. More on this soon….] and apparently my “extra $20 dollars a month” guesstimate from a few weeks back was potentially off by $500 to $3k, depending on whether or not you believe what others have claimed based on total page hits. $20 doesn’t “Woo” me… 3G’s buys a lot of books… And I like books :D As such, 3G’s “Woo“‘s me quite a bit :D

The other option that I am putting more weight on (but would require more effort… possibly) is simply recommending books and items of interest from Amazon. In fact I created an account and tried out my first link using this account just the other day… This is something I could see as having a lot more legitimate reason for being a part of this blog and as such you will probably slowly begin to see integration of my AmazonID tag into books and products links that I recommend because I have read it and love it or used it and loved it, etc… At least this way I could have somewhat of a non-guilty conscience, right? Again, maybe I’m just over-paranoid about the Google Ads thing. If I do decide to implement them I plan to do integrate them in a nice and clean format that doesnt take over anything in regards to focus such that you are not bombarded with stuff that gets in the way of why you stopped by in the first place… content. :)

I doubt I will say much more on the matter. If you see Google Ads you will know why and if you don’t I will let you draw your own conclusions…

Cheers :)