Using Adsense

I've never been able to decide 100% whether or not to use Adsense on my blog. There are many good reasons to use it, but I was a little worried about what it might do to a visitor's perception of my site or my intentions.

Well, nothing much has changed, I'm still not 100% sure, but I'm going to give it a try (as long as they accept me!). The primary function of this blog is to document, publicise and put a human face on our software developments, ie, it is a business venture. If Adsense can provide an additional source of revenue, along with some useful related links and a search box, it would be irresponsible of me to ignore it.

I think it's the human side that makes me hesitant, I seem to write mostly about my personal life (that could just be down to the crazy year I'm having) and now that I've started I like to think I'd continue to have a pretty similar blog even if it wasn't for this software company, despite what the title might suggest. I can't quite put it into words, but there's something inside me that feels like Adsense and affiliate links on my blog is wrong.

Maybe I'm succumbing to the dark-side of the web, but I prefer to think that I'm just choosing to overcome some kind of crazy inhibition about being openly in business... some kind of embarrassment I feel I might find in profiting from my activities. I shouldn't try to hide the fact that running this company is my full time 24/7 job, and that I owe it to my family, my partners and myself to make it successful.

I'm sure I'm overthinking this, anyone who knows me would tell you I do that a lot. Pending acceptance into the Adsense program, I'll be introducing (hopefully) low profile context sensitive ads and a search option in the next few days. If you feel strongly either way about this, please feel free to comment.