In the last few months we’ve seen a number of startups introduce drag-and-drop support for advertising, allowing users to monetize their blogs with a minimum amount of effort. The latest to join the fray is ScribeFire, a popular Firefox plugin that allows users to create and modify their blogposts from a window that is integrated into the browser. The new version of the plugin is now in private beta, and the first 100 TechCrunch readers to send a request to techcrunch@scribefire.com will receive invites.

As part of the plugin’s latest release, ScribeFire will include an ad component that makes placing advertising trivial for most users. While most other similar offerings require some modification of a webpage’s code (even if only one or two lines), ScribeFire can use a blogger’s credentials to place ads without having to manually embed anything. ScribeFire will draw from a number of ad services, using the ads with the highest CPMs in each slot, and users will be able to monitor their ad performance from a dashboard on ScribeFire’s site. And for now ScribeFire is totally free - users will get to keep all of the revenue from their ads (President Patrick Gavin says this will stay true for at least a few months, but that they may modify the payment system later on).

ScribeFire was formerly known as the Performancing blogging plugin, and was rebranded in December 2006. The following January Performancing ran into trouble and the future of ScribeFire seemed uncertain. Since then, the plugin’s technology has been acquired by MediaWhiz, a marketing provider.

Other services that offer similar drag and drop ad placement include Triggit and Weebly.