I had to delete this post because it offended the AdSense Terms of Service. I removed, I believe, the sarcastic comment which was interpreted literally.
To make matters worse. Typepad was not letting me edit the post. It didn't work on Safari or Firefox. I tried cutting and pasting and ended up with a double post.
So I deleted the entire thing, edited it, and am reposting it here. The original post was made on or around April 20, 2006.
Personally I believe Google should worry more about real click-fraud and less about sarcastic teachers who aren't making any money anyway.
The Latest New Thing
I've just discovered Squidoo. It's a user created resource (like wikipedia) which is intended to earn money (like about.com). The big difference is that it is set up as a co-op. The people who contribute (the lensmasters) by building pages (called lenses) have the potential to earn money with affiliate links and Google advertising.
You may think that is already available. It is. I have both affiliate links and ads on my website. (Deleted sarcastic comment was here and the reader can probably figure out what it was about.) But I'm not very good at following up with Amazon or Google to make sure I get paid. (Evidence that the previously mentioned sarcastic comment was in fact sarcastic.) It has been months since I've logged on to either account. (Of course it's also been months since I've made a proper blog entry...)
Not only does Squidoo handle all of those details, they are also very public about how much money is being made. During their Beta testing they raised over $2,000 for charity. After they pay their overhead they pay 5% to charity, then divide the rest among their investors and the lensmasters. Right now that may not seem like much... but...
I think it is going to grow very fast. They have made it very easy to build lenses and they are getting a lot of press. (The greed factor will also motivate its growth.)
I'm finally getting involved in something near its beginning. When I started blogging there were already about 50 gazillion blogs being written. Right now there are about 25000 lenses at Squidoo. Its exciting to be involved in something that may eventually reach 50 gazillion. If nothing else the site's growth would make an interesting math problem...
(Links to my lenses removed since I'm re-doing them. And I'm too lazy to retype the hyperlinks. . . They didn't copy over.)
Update: I decided to mention one of my Squidoo lenses. It's called The Giant Squid. Right now it is in draft form but I plan on publishing it this weekend.
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