Boo. Hiss.

So. I've been ruminating on this whole Bitacle thing all day. It's making me reexamine certain beliefs I hold. It's making me roll my eyes. It's making me tired.

Some people, like Amy Gahran, think that hunting sploggers is a waste of energy. The head lemur disagrees.

Today I looked at my "Bitacle blog" in IE. There were Google ads all over the place. I use Adblock in Firefox, so I hadn't seen them before. And this is what gets me. Bitacle is making money from my blog content.

If you hadn't noticed before (or weren't reading this blog when I announced it), over in the right sidebar, I have a little space called "Credo." Underneath the new Stop Bitacle button, I have a little owly icon which states "Ad-free Blog."

Let me remind you what that owl stands for:

By using this icon on my website I am stating...

1. That I am opposed to the use of corporate advertising on blogs.    

2. That I feel the use of corporate advertising on blogs devalues the medium.

3. That I do not accept money in return for advertising space on my blog.

I have nothing against bloggers who put ads on their sites. I do feel that ads clutter up blogs, but hey, that's what Adblock is for (sorry, Bloggers With Ads).

My stubborn No-Ad belief got shaken a bit this morning, when I browsed through the BlogHer newsletter I get every so often. Mir has a post on BlogHer that defends ads (especially on "mommyblogs," which this is not, even though I am a mommy, but I digress). I had to agree with a lot of what Mir had to say.

Honestly, if I thought I could make any real money with this blog, I might implement ads, a tip jar, affiliate links, or all three. However, I maintain that AliThinks doesn't get enough traffic to make ads worthwhile. I mean, hello, Technorati tracks more than 55 million blogs. I won't be "selling out" anytime soon.

So what's my point? Let me reiterate: I'm pissed off that Bitacle is theoretically making money from my blog content, and I'm not. And then there's the not-so-minor matter of my Creative Commons license, which states that my work may not be used for commercial purposes.

I didn't start blogging to make money. I started so that I could see my words in print SOMEWHERE. Little did I know how many friends I'd make or how much navel-gazing I'd actually do.

What am I going to do about it? I've already truncated my RSS feed so that Bitacle doesn't repost ALL of my content. I also followed Amy Gahran's advice on reporting sploggers like Bitacle to Google.

And I'll keep on blogging — because I evidently can't stay away from it — despite the knowledge that even if Bitacle ceases and desists, there will be other splogs ripping off my content. I'll fight them, too. Damn moneygrubbers.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Don't you just hate that???

[ally bean]

this is all news to me. and it stinks.

[Mist 1]

I'm with you on this one. Well said.

[Margaret]

So, did you truncate your feed through typepad? Let me know how to do that. Merci.

[Daisy]

I definitely support against advertising on blogs for those that want to go down that route but these damn splogs make me angry. Martyn's content is also being stolen this way (not by bitacle) so I'm following this closely, thank you for all the helpful links.

[meredith]

This all has me wondering about a contact I had from someone who wants me to send him interesting blogs. I never did, but now I am going to check out his site to see what it really is.

[misschrisc]

I'm not into the ad thing either. It spoils the carefree nature of blogging and hey do you really make any money off of it anyway (unless you're Dooce or someone with a TON of traffic)? Is it worth all the clutter?

[The CEO]

I'm going to walk the other side of the street here Ali. I don't see this as a case of right or wrong. And, as a blogger with less than a month's experience, i am not the voice of reason. But clutter doesn't seem to be a reasonable argument to me when I see all of the other things that decorate a blog. If there's a secret to making money off of a blog, it may be to allow ads, and buy stock in Google (GOOG). Use a discount broker, please, not that I have an opinion, naturally.

[lily/rebecca]

keep fighting the good fight!!

see you (virtually, anyway) on or after oct 17th!

[Riana]

Those bastards!!! I tried ads for about a month and made 91 cents and figured it was so not worth the trouble and clutter. I did leave up my get firefox badge, because I *heart* firefox.

[Paul Davidson]

Ads for bloggers are a waste of time unless you're getting hundreds of thousands of hits a month. Or a week. Or in a day.

Otherwise, it just makes the blog design look like crap.

Cheers!

[Bubba]

Ok... I can only click on so many hyperlinks to catch up but... why are you so popular in Spain?

I do like the 'can't stay away from it chingalara'!

[claire]

Thanks for the info... I'm off to truncate my feed as well.