Revenue Sharing Advertising Arrives On WordPress.Com

Some users of WordPress.com will now be able to partake in revenue sharing display advertising thanks to the launch of WordAds. I say some users because it’s available only if your application is accepted. This quote by Jon Burke sums up the story of how bad advertising had been for WordPress.com users over the past few years.

Over the years one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads. We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense.

It’s indeed sad that Adsense can be considered the best that WordPress.com can do however, it’s about time they broadened their horizons and provided an alternate means of display advertising. Just a few weeks ago, I linked to a story that described just how bad the display advertising was on WP.com and the news of WordAds couldn’t come at a better time, despite being late.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this all comes together. The type of advertising, the sites content, and the actual products being advertised. If everything can mesh together well, this should be a success.