Prior to the last post, it had been a while since I had something to say. I tend to make posts when something interests me enough to write more than two sentences about the subject. Sometimes it takes a while to find a subject like that. Anyway, I don’t actually have much to write, but thought I’d point out a couple of commercial things on this web site and my thinking behind them.

First, I put Google ads on the left side of the pages. I’m pretty intrigued by the whole Google ad approach, where they read the text of the page to determine what ads to place. Some of the ads have been pretty amusing. I was mostly curious to see what ads would show up on a blog like mine. I also appreciate the basic usage counter that comes for free with this. And the occasional click through helps keep all of this running. I certainly miss the old days of when banner ads were paid on the impression as well as the click through.

Second, I’ve updated the recommended reading page. I did that because I recently had an e-mail exchange with a friend which included a list of books that I had read. I thought that I ought to try to do a better job keeping the book list up to date for two reasons — I’m often asked for book recommendations and I read so many books that this will help me recall everything that I’ve read.

Third, I put an Amazon “gift” button on the upper right. I don’t know if I’ll keep it, but was interested in the basic idea. Clearly, this isn’t much different than a street performer asking for donations. Well, in large part, that’s what all of us bloggers are. We put some effort into producing content and things like donation buttons allow for contributions in return. Obviously there are community aspects to the entire web log phenomenon, but there seem to be just as many performance aspects. If you are inclined to contribute, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too. I don’t plan on canceling any performances :-)