I would say the winner here is wordpress.com due to the fact that now a lot of people think about renting a domain name because they dream of making a living from ads.. But at the end people will now pay for a domain unless they dont have already one, because you need this domain to apply to the ads program, but those will notice very earlie that you cant generate that much money with it to make a “living” of it.

So the winner is clearly wordpress.com but also the companys who run the ad campaigns as you mentioned. It is simply cheaper for them than tv ads.

But there comes another problem. Most of the experienced internet users today block ads with addons for firefox. So, the only thing happens hear is that wordpress.com sells domain names and that the ad companys get a “chance” to display their stuff. I think this is nice marketing for wordpress to sell domains and not much more.

If you truly want to make money with a blog, then I bet it would be better to pay a host and setup your own wordpress so that you can do with it what ever you want to do. This will give you the chance to earn money not only with ads but also on other ways. And then it is your decision and your rules. It will also cost but the thing is you can then write your own rules and create your own campaing and strategy how you want to generate money.

Dont see this as negative critism. It´s nice that wordpress.com gives the chance to make dollars with the blog, but I believe the winner is not the average blogger or user who joins in that program.

When I see here that someone makes just 3 dollars with an average trafic of 7k… then I think there are way better ways to generate money from the traffic. But this would mean selfhosting to have no houserules.

Greetings.

Ads of other bloggers do not bother me unless I get to a page and the ads take on a vulgar or liberal/progressive tone.

Maybe I will check it out and no it would not affect how and what I blog – I dislike Obummer, Jeb Bush and political parties in general so any ads I see do not necessarily affect me – it is like a radio or tv – you don’t like what you see or hear – don’t go back!

I know on my photography site the company who host my domain pay me £12.50 for ever person who take hosting with them. Its not advertising its a link and the word ‘Need Hosting’ that is it.

So to make £100 from WordPress by people clicking on adverts would take a long time and really is it worth it?