Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Google Ads

A while back Nate Cardon pointed out the amusing nature of the Google ads Blogger pastes across the top of this site. I do appreciate the fact that Blogger manages to provide this service free for me, but I react with a combination of bemusement and horror at some of the ads. If I post on same-sex marriage, I promptly get all sorts of pro-SSM ads. If I post on baptisms for the dead, I get anti-Mormon sites. And I shudder to think what might happen if I post anything on p*rnography.

Some questions arise. Is it a better idea to simply ignore such ads, or would clicking through (on the non-obscene ones) perhaps be more fun (don't they pay Google per clickthrough?)? And why don't the anti-SSM forces do a better job of advertising, anyway? When I first started blogging about SSM issues, I got the impression that there weren't very many interest groups out there defending marriage. Now I've picked up on enough leads (some of which are in my 'to-research' pile) that I'm starting to think that there are plenty, but that most of them don't do a very good job.

In other Google-related news, they're now offering Gmail beta-test opportunities to anyone with a Blogger account. I'm trying to decide whether to start using that instead of Yahoo (which I've decided I don't like much), though The Volokh Conspiracy points out a potential problem.

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