What is with the blogging ads

Amrit writes about the "dramatic increase" of folks putting ads and other money generating content on their blogs lately. He asks a question that got me to thinking.  He wants to know if anyone with a sub 10k visits a week blog is making the money to justify all the selling.  I feel I bear some responsibility here.  The Security Bloggers Network I put together on Feedburner, made it very easy for some of us who would never be able to attract advertisers, to put ads on our blogs.  However, I am not alone, the guys over at Performancing have put together a blog advertising community that is also making it easy to put ads on your blog.  I am sure there are others that I am just blanking on right now.  However, Amrit is right, I don't think any of us are making the kind of money that a Fred Wilson (I think like 30k a year, which he donates to charity) makes on his a VC Blog . In fact from my own personal experience it is not even close!

So what is the deal then?  I think Amrit on reflection, it is all about the ego.  Never underestimate the ego of the blogger.  It takes a certain amount of ego to blog in general.  I think we all think of what we are writing is at least mildly important.  Of course other people want to see what we have to say.  Of course our content is valuable and in our own minds is of high value.  So now that we have established ourselves as legends, in our own minds at least, the leap to monetizing or having mainstream ads on the blog, helps stroke and feed the ever consuming ego.  Plain and simple, it is really not about making a lot of money from the ads, it is about the fact that I have ads there from companies like RIM, the NY Times, etc.  I did turn down an ad from Symantec, which in my mind was a major act of integrity.  Anyway, I hope it does not get in the way of the content and dissuade anyone from reading the important stuff I have to say, but it does make me feel good Amrit.