On Google's shadow payroll

There is an article in the NY Times today entitled "Google's Shadow Payroll Is Not Such a Secret Anymore" which talks about people, like me, who make a rather modest amount of money by running Google AdSense ads on their blogs and web sites. The article makes a big deal about a software company, Digital Point Solutions, which rakes in a cool $10,000 a month. I assure you that I don't pull in anywhere near that amount. My average daily "take" wouldn't pay for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It does pay for the tea bags that I use every day, but not by much, and some days not at all. Also, for whatever reason, the ads on my blogs are very rarely clicked. Virtually all of my AdSense ad clicks are for my non-blog web sites. I suspect, but cannot prove, that most of my clicks come from my Daily Stock Market Commentary.

So, in some sense you can say that I'm "on Google's shadow payroll".

But, rest assured that the very modest revenue stream from Google in no way influences anything that I may write online. In fact, I'm desperately waiting for Yahoo and Microsoft to offer AdSense-like advertising programs for us smaller "publishers" so that the competition for us will heat up and our per-ad revenues will be boosted. I have no loyalty to Google and would just as soon switch to Yahoo or Microsoft if they'd offer a sweeter deal.

-- Jack Krupansky