Ok, pretty much everyone has seen Google’s AdSense ads on the web. That is nothing new, there’s been lots of discussion about Google possibly cheating people out of money by refusing to pay in some cases and others talking up the potential of such a program. No matter which way you lean, Google has definitely brought an interesting economic shift to the web. While AdSense has been expanding it’s grasp to more and more websites, the growth I’ve seen lately seems particularly interesting.
Two large websites that been managing their own advertisements have now begun showing Google’s AdSense ads. O’Reilly Network and Source Forge added AdSense ads recently. Both of these sites focus on a very technical crowd, mostly those involved with (or at least using) open source products and code. I suspect this will add a stronger air of respectability among that audience.
I’m not sure how to put this into words, it feels like an odd shift in the force of the open source web now that Google’s AdSense fingers are into it in such a major way.
Heck, maybe one of these days you’ll see ‘Ads by Google’ here 🙂