Robert Scoble, who has long been proud of the fact that his popular blog remains free of advertisements or sponsorships, will soon put ads on his site, he told me yesterday.
The change comes as part of his move to Fast Company, who will sell the ads on his behalf and will also be redesigning the site.
Scoble and Dave Winer have been the main proponents of advertising-free blogs over the years, arguing that it creates conflicts that should be avoided. In 2005, when we first put ads on TechCrunch, Winer wrote a long comment expressing disappointment and regretting linking to the site, and followed up with a podcast on the issue. He’s been writing about this since at least 2000.
This isn’t the first time Scoble has run into issues around financial conflicts of interest, but it’s the first time it directly involved his personal blog. So Scoble has changed his tune. Will Winer be next?
Money is good anyway.
Winer known to be changing tunes once in a while.. eg., his stand towards the then (still is) monopolistic feedburner.com before its acquisition by goog, in that, one feedburner is enough, whatever his then reason was, or reasons were..
Who reads this d#ckhead’s blog anyway
I also touched on this a week ago when he made the announcement of adding the ads:
http://www.cent...to-fast-company
I wondered if this changed how he handles things going forward – esp. after his bashing of gizmodo for making news, not writing about it. (which i agreed with)
It is understandable why popular blogs like Techcrunch and others would need to sell ads- due to the need to pay Bloggers and the high cost of maintenance when you have a heavily traffic blog.
It does create conflicts – one example is TURNING THE COMMENTS OFF - on some posts that are thanking sponsors.
The comments should NEVER be turned off – the public should be warned by others if a services is not as hot as it is being marketed to be. Of course, you still have the right to filter reckless comments. The whole concept of a blog is democratic communication.
Don’t participate in censorship about the services you are promoting. They have to know if the services have not lived up to expectations after being initially introduced. It is to their benefit to be told they are sub standard.
Even Engadget had become very proactive about changing their comment polices. Readers are not as frank as they used to be. They have even added a rating system to the comments. That can sometimes hinder frankness.
Scoble also does some reviews – not as much as TechCrunch – but perhaps this is the direction his blog is going. He may not be able to maintain his objectivity and may be forced to cater to the clients. Also the frankness of the comments may be compromised by filtering and ratings etc.
This will just make it another commercial tech blog
I mean withads you can do more research andput up better content and ultimately raise the benchmarks of Blogging to more than that of offbeat media to comparabl eor even better than main stream media.
http://tekno-wo...ld.blogspot.com
In market economy, it is a good thing to make money as long as you don’t cheat. You can worry about side effects, but that doesn’t mean it should be banned.
But I am a bit confused about this and TC’s position on paid blogging. What’s the difference?
blah… give the guy a break. i’m not going to start/stop reading a blog that is given to me FOR FREE and with NO OBLIGATION simply because the owner decides to put ads. that goes for Scoble. I really don’t care what that other guy does.
Some reasons:
1. He has seen the light (the light of the soon-to-be-again mighty greenback)
2. Someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse
3. He has caught a bad case of capitalistic fever; and last but not least
4. He has finally come to his (insert word here) senses….
If print and TV journalists are able to handle this “conflict”, blogs are too.
It just is important to be a person of integrity, because the system never has integrity…
Darn, I normally dont read Scoble’s blog, but now I might go to his site just to look at the ads.
I can see it now. To advertise for say Levi’s jeans, Scoble will have a video where he draws a pair of Levi’s on a whiteboard, and writes out the benefits.
Journalism is not unbiased in “new media” or “old media.”
In one, it is the bloggers/journalists who stand the most gain themselves, while in the other it is the executives who control content and profit from the objectivity.
Why else do we see write ups on specific companies ( a.k.a. Apple gets tons and tons of press), movies, music, books, etc. for certain content publishers, and not so much for others.
People assume way too much if they think old media is truly objective (have you watched Fox News recently?)
Each man and woman has got to decide whats best for him or her.
who cares… big deal… yawn
I agree with david – who cares – really? Seems like a rant on your part and a “told you so” post which is of little relevance to us all…
its all about the benjamins
I always wondered why Scoble wouldn’t do that and I’m happy to see it happen, eventually.
He has a big audience, why not directly making money off it?
As long as he does disclose every possible conflict of interest, like he (and most other big bloggers) did earlier already anyway, I don’t see a problem.
He invests a lot of his personal life into the Scoble-brand. He should make as much money out of it as possible, especially after the PodTech-failure that didn’t bring him the big acquisition bucks.
“.. To advertise for say, Levi’s jeans, Scoble will have a video where he draws a pair of Levi’s on a whiteboard, and writes out the benefits.”
Or maybe he’ll have a video where he discusses with Billy Mays, why exactly Oxyclean does such a good job
!!
Your Audio Content, Your Live Streams, & more…
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Will Google get his pagerank to ZERO?
Michael, Its all your fault!
They see you raking in the moolah and decided it isn’t worth being saints anymore!
Anyway I am happy for both of you!
why does techcrunch cover this guy’s every move? it’s so f’ing stupid. it reminds me of tmz and britney spears or something. seriously arrington, write about issues that matter.
I don’t have ads on my blog, but that’s because I don’t have any traffic! You can bet your bottom dollar I would be putting ads up if it was worth it. I think it’s stupid, especially now, to NOT monetize your blog.
Not that TC owes us anything but there are hundreds of small startups actually creating stuff (versus blogging and vcasting about stuff) that would kill for one mention in TC and yet again more space given to “The Friends of TC”.
I guess this story matters to pro bloggers, right? It’s not a non-story but it’s pretty darn close.
wtf cares abt this. slow news day or something?
You guys are like the paparazzi of tech-geekdom.
David has it right: “who cares… big deal… yawn”
Doesn’t everyone use adblock plus (or something comparable)?
It’s taken him this long? What a lot of cash he’s missed out on so far.
Ads do not have to represent a conflict of interest. I added ads on my blog with Federated Media a few years back and found it to be a very positive thing. Never have I felt that I needed to pimp a product or do anything less than express my full and honest opinion while blogging.
I did point out once to FM when they posted an ad with a crying baby on it that I’d written some pretty harsh things about artist Jill Greenberg’s crying baby portrait series and they pulled the ads. Who the hell cares.
Why shouldn’t Scoble ad ads? It’s simply like leaving money on the table if he does not.
Scobles “brand” is worth far more than it’s advertising value. He’s simply doing the smart thing and accepting some free money. Scoble Sells Out is a bit of a misleading headline.
Not sure why it’s such a big deal. After deciding to leave the safe confines of Microsoft, it’s clear that he is looking to make some dough so why not try to leverage the popularity of his blog.
Hopefully, his site re-design will look better than the current version, which can be compared car-wise to the East German Trabant.
@JeffC
C’mon the Trabant doesn’t look that bad!
It’s a classic. In Berlin you can still see some driving around.
Idealism usually succumbs to economic necessity when one has mortgage payments and extra mouths to feed.
Ads will allow him to hit more events that might not be funded by his new gig. It means a chance to expand out, try more things. And he’s worth it.
I know that wasn’t your point in the post. I know you’re saying that he had a different stance than yours. But to others, I think ads will be a good thing for Robert.
@JeffC – good one!
Good for him. This is a guy who built his reputation on the fact that he could be honest and transparent while being paid by one of the hugest corporations in the world, Microsoft. I have no reason to believe web ads would change him or his content in any way. The dude has a family feed. Good for him.
Tim
The mere fact of displaying ads on a blog has nothing to do with a sell out. You only can start talking about a sell out the moment the blogger pushes the products of his/her advertisers against his/her own better judgement.
It is each blogger’s personal freedom to put on his blog nearly everything that he/she wants. This includes ads.
The funny thing about this is that he hasn’t replied…maybe he’s waiting for the Fast Company PR dept to approve his reply…don’t want to piss of his advertisers!
Subscriber of several years unsubscribing. TechCrunch’s value add trending to zero.
This post in particular reads like an election year television ad produced by some anonymous 529 (”Concerned Bloggers Against Flip Flopping in Blogging”?) that positions politics/business as usual as sizzling scandal.
“Will Winer be next?” Hadn’t thought about it. But thanks for asking. Maybe you could talk to Dave and let us know — you know, like a journalist might.
So if Scoble ’sells out’ with ads on his site, Techcrunch sold out years ago?
Don’t understand this world anymore.
like a journalist might
Come on Eric, this place has never been about journalism. And now with the whole Davos-Bono-omg-i-must-be-soooooooo-famous-to-be-here rubbish, it’s finally lost any shred of interest. I’m joining you in the delete-tc-rss-feed thing.
I am actually surprised that Scoble didn’t have any ads until now. That seems like a big waste of opportunity. As a reader/subscriber to his blog I hardly find ads as a bother to me.
In fact, even here at TechCrunch I rarely notice the ads. I am programmed to skip them. I guess I have a built-in ad-filter in me
How dare he change his mind. Why can’t he be a real american, and choose a stance, sticking to it till the end of all time?
Thanks for the “news” Valleywag…ur…TechCrunch.
BTW, no Scoble response? Strange!
No worries – I read blogs through Google Reader which conveniently displays text only. When I actually want to comment on a blog adblock nicely strips all advertising and speeds site load times.
Do yourself a favor and surf ad free https://addons....irefox/addon/10
I don’t see the problems with ads, persay. The issue here is that it’s a part of his new gig. So I’ll be interested what happens in the event that something that happens as a part of FastCompany.tv (biffo over placed ads/bias) affects his personal brand. It’s a pretty ballsy move on his part, lets hope it doesn’t bite him in the rear.
Gigs come and go.
Its easy for Winer to criticise given that he is most likely a millionaire from the Weblogs sale.
But Scoble has a family to feed. A new kid just born. Can’t begrudge him what he is doing.
That’s good news for 2 reasons:
1. His blog/website *definetly* needs a design overhaul!
2. Ads are not bad… when used wisely! They have to take time to integrate this point with point 1. above!! And after all, I read his Twitter and Feed/Shared Feed more than I read the actual blog, sooo…
Scoble lodt his creds when he left Microsoft. Those who are still subscribing to his feed will experience his eventual downfall.
Welcome to the Nascar-ized world of Blogs
Most blogs resemble a Nascar car anyways ,, why not sell every inch for maximum effect .
Money comes in handy , especially for a new daddy .
Nice personal dig – he’s an arse so i’m all for it.
If you slam someone for putting ads on their site and take the high ground, dont be suprised to get laughed at when you put ads on your own site.
Techcrunch never said there was anything wrong with ads.
Knob head did.
Hence Knob head sold out and its time to point and laugh.
It’s amazing how easy it is to deal with this conflict when the money is coming from a company but it’s insurmountable when it comes from government.
Cvos SEO
I love irony
Especially in posts / commenets that use an inserted ad to make a point about being add free
dumbass
It’s about time he hung some hides on the Scobleizer.com
He’s part of a big media property. Of course they want access to the audience. Only natural. Mr. Scoble’s cut the deal his way, has been pretty transparent (maybe even completely) about the whole thing along the way…
“Way to go!” I say. One more thing he’s trying. Look… you have to admit he’s taking some well calculated risks. It’s not like he’s recklessly doing stupid stunts. He’s definitely making inroads and bringing red meat to the table.