There’s an interesting article over on the Whitespace blog about the changes to TechCrunch and his inclusion of way too many advertisements. The post is quite critical of the new design, and accuses TechCrunch of being greedy.
This is an interesting topic, I’ve seen articles with a similar tone several times this week, probably due to the 200+ point hit the DOW took. Everyone’s concerned that this web 2.0 nonsense is a bubble and greedy people are going to cause a crash.
This whole topic is very similar to a conversation I had last night. As an NFL fan, we were discussing the offseason player movements, specifically guys like Edgerin James and Antwaan Randle El. Both high profile players have caught a lot of flack for leaving thier teams. Thing is, how do you turn down $30 million dollar contracts? Football is a sport where your career could end tomorrow in a car crash or during a tackle. Who can blame guys like James and Randel El for selling out, especially in Antwaan’s case where he has already won a Super Bowl ring with Pittsburgh. As a fan I would love to see guys stay with a team, but as a person I understand how difficult it would be to turn down a big contract like that.
Blogs are currently a similar phenomenon. Web 2.0, $20,000 monthly ad revenue and all of they hype are probably not going to last forever. If you can make money, you better do it. If it’s out there on the table, guys like TechCrunch would be foolish not to pick it up.