I use a default MovableType design, and have no plans to do my own. Anything I could do would be far uglier than their one.

If people are that fickle I don’t care.

The very same ads are seen differently by different people depending on their usage of the web. To some they are relevant useful links, to others they are deceptive diversions to unwanted places, to others they are a visual vulgarity and hindrance to reading the content they’re trying to read, and for others, and many I suspect reading this, ad blindness has already set in like it did across the board earlier with banner blindness.

Google are so much better than the Yahoo and MSN ads because they have mastered relevance but since they now allow so many levels of arbitrage I personally rarely find their ads as useful at locating desired content as they first were.

“The minute you log into your Google account to check the balance is the minute you have handed over some of your freedom of expression.” Maybe. For some people. But is that really any different than logging into Stat Counter or FeedBurner to check your visitors or subscribers? I could believe somebody really doesn’t give a damn about what they write or the freedom of that expression if they just wrote it without checking on the traffic and maybe tailoring their writing to increase their traffic?

To be honest I believe many people (not me) do write whatever they want regardless of their traffic or their ads. And rewriting headlines is something people might do to increase their traffic rather than their ad revenue.

Even defining a personal blog is not so simple - many tech bloggers write personal blogs that are ultimately, however disguised, a part of their business branding. If they help them network - and what blog doesn’t - then are they not surrendering a complete freedom of expression once they benefit from that networking?

I call Irish KC a personal blog, because it is - but it’s also clearly commerical - and it has the most vulgar positioning of AdSense that you can have - because that pays the highest dividend. But then I don’t have a day job; my blogs and the income from them is how I make my living - in so much as I do make a living. But I make 5 times as much from selling paintings through the site, and much the same through webwork. And to be honest sticking garish paintings for sale in the middle of content about Irish events listings in an American city can be fairly considered a crude and ugly form of advertising to many visitors.

I don’t run Google’s ads on American Hell because as an image based site relevance was tougher to get, and the low click-throughs and low rates for the ads it would attract only served to lower rates on Irish KC once Smart Pricing kicked in.

You asked about gaining expertise by running ads - that’s the sole reason I run ads on LiamDaly.com - unlike IrishKC not for the revenue but as a permanent test ground. I don’t even have to change content because Google change their methods so often and there’s no better environment to observe the impact than on a live site.

On the analogy front I’m with Grandad in that if somebody wants to look at my splendid self in its physicality I don’t bombard them with the ads of labels in that I turn plastic bags and t-shirts inside out.

And just as soon as I get a day job or sell a few more paintings I plan to drop the in your face ads from Irish KC.

Directs ads and sponsorship is the obvious way to go to maintain relevance, but one person’s ugly is another person’s oil painting. If ya know what I mean.