This week, it was announced that WordPress.com bloggers will soon be able to monetize their blogs with advertising. Thanks to a partnership between Automattic (the company behind WordPress) and Federated Media (which recently acquired Lijit, an advertising, engagement and analytics provider), the 24 million people who publish blogs using WordPress.com will be able to display targeted ads on their blogs and make money. This is an opt-in program, so if monetizing your blog isn’t your thing, you don’t have to participate.
But don’t get overly excited yet. There is no word on how bloggers will make money from this new advertising opportunity. While most people assume there will be some kind of revenue sharing program for bloggers to earn money from the ads displayed on their blogs, Automattic will surely take a sizable cut of those revenues.
We’ll have to wait and see how the numbers shake out as more information is released. In the meantime, it looks like I’ll need to make some edits to the next edition of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress!
