I have had advertising on my blog for as long as I can remember. Except for the period of time when I hosted the site at Wordpress.com, I have always had AdSense, Chitika, or some other ad services content being contextually presented to my visitors.

Frankly, I found having ads up on my site extremely hypocritical, as I do everything in my power to avoid seeing ads of any kind during my day-to-day Web use. My browsers have ad-blocking plugins, or pass through ad-blocking proxies to eliminate the content I see as intrusive and unwanted.

Still, I spent a long time thinking about ad-placement on my own blog, and what I could do to drive traffic to get revenue, from something I didn’t believe in myself.

Yes, my blog doesn’t get huge amounts of traffic. And yes, I have been paid out exactly four times by AdSense in the 5 years I have been blogging. In four years, I have made $400 from the ads on my site.

I find ads intrusive, invasive, repulsive, and, in many cases, extremely ugly. So why should visitors to my site have to suffer with them?

Effective Sunday, August 9 2009, the ad code, in all its various forms, has been eliminated from my site. My blog is now officially ad-free. And it will stay that way.

For me, ad-revenue is ineffective. It takes away from the true reason I started writing this blog: I have something to say. If I am always thinking “How will this play with the contextual ad providers?”, then I am not writing in my own voice. I am writing to meet the criteria of an algorithm that triggers on certain words and will provide advertising that might make me money.

By presenting ads to visitors, the same ads that I despise.

When you step back and think about your blog, consider the following.

• Do you think about every word in your posts, considering its effect on your SEO?
• Do you change your site design often to try and discover the optimal ad layout?
• Is ad revenue more important than your reputation as a blogger?
• Do you always think about branding in terms of dollars instead of in terms of authority and reputation?

Blogging is not about the money. And while I read Darren Rowse and other pro-blogging advocates, I also realize that they’re focus is on quality content for an appreciative audience.

I feel that ad revenues can lead to the loss of your blogging voice. And my voice and reputation are what are most vital to me, not dollars from ugly ads.

Three years ago, in a post on this blog, I stated that I thought that the browser was becoming less important as more data moved into streams of data through RSS and aggregated feeds, as well as a raft of other consumer-oriented Web services.

This position was based on the assumption that the endpoint, in the form of installed applications, wouldcontinue to serve as the focus for user interactions, that these applications would be the points where data was accumulated and processed by users. This could be best described as the firehose: The end-user desktop would be at the end of a flood of data being pushed to it a never-ending flood.

Firefox and Chrome have changed all of that.

The browser has, instead, become the window through which we view and manipulate our data. It’s now ok, completely acceptable in fact, to use online applications as replacements for installed applications, stripping away a profit engine that has fed so many organizations over the years.

The endpoint has been shown to be the access point to our applications, to our data. Data is not brought and stored locally: It is stored remotely and manipulated like a marionette from afar.

While Chrome and Firefox are not perfect, they serve as powerful reminders of what the Web is, and why the browser exists. The Browser is not the end of a flod of incoming data, it is the window through which we see our online world.

While some complain that there is still an endless stream of data, we control and manipulate it. It doesn’t flood us.

It has been at least a year since I last updated everyone on the state of GrabPERF. That’s because for most of the last year, the system has been rolling along without a hitch or a major systemic change. The last major change to the agent code was alomost exactly a year ago, when I added the ability to capture text matches.

It wasn’t until last week, however, that I allowed folks to be able to see the results of these text match failures. Let’s just say that motivation has been low and my real job has been keeping me busy.

I did want to share the growth, and mellowing of the system as it progresses into year three.

Total Measurements Per Day

Unique Tests Measured Per Day

Back in July 2005 when I started this grand experiment, I was gathering 10,000 measurements a day from less than forty tests. The system spiked at 390,000 measurements per day (April 2006) and 147 tests (June 2006).

Starting just after that, I started reducing the number of tests to improve system efficiency, and began developing the text match capability.

There have been some changes to the number of measurements, but on the whole, the system has been completely stable for the last 12 months.

As some of you may have noted, I have add some new features in the last 10 days, and re-organized the structure of the system to allow for better tracking of usage. Over the next few months, I will be attacking the code to make it process things more efficiently, but not substantially change the appearance or functionality of GrabPERF.

It has been noted by some commentators that the design doesn’t pop and sizzle. No AJAX, DHTML, or other flashy gizmos. Guess what? The system is designed to deliver data efficiently and effectively. And as someone who has seen the performance fall-out from badly delivered Web 2.0 implementations, I will stick with clunky and effective, as, in the end, you gotta put all those bytes on the wire.

For those that have stuck with the system over the last year, thanks. I enjoy delivering the best measurement data money can’t buy, and hope you stick around for the ride.

I do not want to host my own blog.

Even if I wanted to, Wordpress.com does not make it easy to export content. This, however, is a separate discussion.

Skype and Web 2.0 (I hate the term, but I am using it) are inextricably linked.

Wordpress and Web 2.0 are inextricably linked.

Wordpress.com hates Skype. It’s that simple.

According to a Wordpress.com forum post:

Actually in this case it’s because skype and callme are being stripped. They’re not XML recognized tags and staff has stated that they won’t be supported.

And

Fraid not. Javascripts are still removed from input for security concerns. If you really need Skype, I would suggest getting a paid host.

See here.

Wordpress.com: BUILD A SKYPE WIDGET!

Thank you.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress.com, skype, widgets

I heard (via TechCrunch and Om Malik and PubSub) that there is some … transition at PubSub.

Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for PubSub, because Bob Wyman was the first person to really notice and appreciate the things I was doing at GrabPERF. I wonder what the future holds for this team.

Frankly, I would agree with Michael Arrington’s comment that PubSub is a likely acquisition target. They do offer a very interesting service, but as a standalone offering, the opportunities are becoming increasingly narrow. As part of a larger Social Web/Web 2.0 firm with a broad range of products, PubSub’s technology could become the glue that holds the various parts together.

Update: Salim Ismail, the now retired CEO, posts his own comments here.

Technorati Tags: PubSub, blog search, Web 2.0, management, acquisition

Renee Blodgett confirms my fears about the Web 2.0 bubble starting. [here]

Hope you have a parachute or a soft spot to land…

UPDATE: Geek News Central sees it another way. They see Cogent as hitching a free ride and getting thrown off the bus finally. Either way, the bacbone providers are about to realize that they aren’t the ones with power anymore.

The lawsuits from this should be interesting, and are likely going to expose many of the dark edges of the connectivity market that will shock most people who use the Internet.

Cnet has the news here.

One of the sites most notably affected was the Boston Museum of Fine Arts — quoted in this story. So I took the MFA as a bellweather of when the Internet would return to normal.

CLICK IMAGE

Using the GrabPERF system and one other measurement network, it appears that the Level3 and Cogent networks started speaking to each other again at approximately 16:00 EDT (20:00 GMT) today, with recovery times varying by company, backbone, and location.

CLICK IMAGE

I was having a conversation on a completely unrelated matter with one of the journalists who covers the Internet space, and mentioned this event to him. He hadn’t heard of it (hey, I know how hard he works), but we both were kind of shocked that this could still happen.

A large backbone provider rarely does this just because they can; if that were the case, the Internet would be divided into petty fiefdoms where no one could talk to anyone else, which sounds awfully familiar to some of us who remember pre-Internet networks.

A large backbone provider does this to strengthen their position, and diminish that of their peering partner.

There is a lot of money being made on the Internet again. This breakage was, in my opinion, is a result of the Tier 1 backbone providers staking out their turf for what they see as another flow of big and stupid spending resulting from the frenzy around Web 2.0.

Level3 summarily terminated the peering arrangement in an attempt to marginalize Cogent, perhaps in an attempt create the impression that Cogent is less valuable to the Internet than “real” Tier 1 backbones.

What does this pre-emptive attack on Cogent’s reputation gain them? I think that the core reason is that Level3 may be trying to reduce the perceived market value of Cogent, making them a more vulnerable target for acquisition.

It will be interesting to watch what happens in a month when this flares up again.

IceRocket: cogent, level3, peering, internet

Technorati: cogent, level3, peering, internet

Dave Sifry released a state of the search post yesterday. Between re-building my laptop and getting a client project out, I missed the original post.[here]

Thanks Dave! And continued success.

Technorati: Technorati, Web Performance, Capacity Planning, Web 2.0, SEO, traffic analysis

IceRocket: Technorati, Web Performance, Capacity Planning, Web 2.0, SEO, traffic analysis

Ping-O-Matic. Weblogs.com.

Two of the sites that have seen surges in Web traffic recently.

My unsubstantiated theory is that as summer ends, Web traffic is seeing its usual surge, amplified by the new interest in blogs and Web 2.0 properties.

For the small companies who have effectively had the summer off, it’s time to re-adjust your capacity-planning estimates…upward.

Why? Rising oil prices will reduce travel. Disenchantment with movies will reduce going out. Gourmet take-home will reduce restaurant visitation. And increasing broadband access will increase demand for online services.

Be afraid…and get ready for more traffic. Lots more traffic.

Have you optimized your site for maximum performance yet?

Technorati: Web Performance, Capacity Planning, Web 2.0, SEO, traffic analysis

IceRocket: Web Performance, Capacity Planning, Web 2.0, SEO, traffic analysis

Yikes!!!

Can you say capacity planning nightmare?

Technorati: Web Performance, Capacity Planning, Web 2.0, SEO, traffic analysis, ping-o-matic, pingomatic

IceRocket: Web Performance, Capacity Planning, Web 2.0, SEO, traffic analysis ping-o-matic, pingomatic