• NY Times, Monday, January 16, 2006 10:18 AM

The New York Times today posts an interesting article about the evolution of AdSense, Google's contextual advertising network. AdSense publishers are now finding creative ways to leverage the money they receive from Google to get people to use their site. Digital Point Solutions, a software company from San Diego, receives about $10,000 per month from Google in exchange for placing text ads on its technology forum. For anyone who starts a new discussion, he/she receives half the money Digital Point gets from Google for that section, and then splits the share with other participants in the discussion. The payoffs for users are certainly small, but growing; the offer still provides a nice little incentive for more people to participate--which is all good for the publisher. While search remains the dominant driver of revenue for Google, contributing $885 million in the third quarter, programs like these demonstrate the room for growth and innovation within AdSense, whose revenues grew 76 percent in the same period from 2004, totaling $675 million. Of course, this number becomes smaller when you consider the fact that Google kicks back nearly 80 percent to publishers, but the company clearly does this to ensure that AdSense will continue to grow for a long time.

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