14 DAY TRIAL // Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, the hosting service, and behind much of the development of WordPress - the open source blogging software, has been looking for ways to make money for a long time.
It's running several strategies at once, but it is now debuting something new, ads for WordPress.com blogs. Calling an ad-supported website 'new' in 2011 seems funny, at best, but that's what Automattic is going for.
After all, that's what Twitter finally settled on after discounting advertising as the last resort for a couple of years. Automattic tried everything in the book as well, but it seems that it's settling on ads in the end as well.
It debuted WordAds which will be available to WordPress.com bloggers exclusively and only those with custom domain. The company plans to run "high quality" ads on those blogs via its program.
"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," Automattic wrote.
"You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better. Well we think we’ve cracked it, and we’re calling it WordAds," it said.
Dishing a competitor isn't exactly the classiest way of launching a new product. After all, Automattic wouldn't make any money from AdSense ads but it will from WordAds. So, perhaps it's not in the best position to offer an objective comparison between the two.
The new advertising program isn't available to everyone just yet, those interested can sign up and Automattic may even pick you to be the lucky participant in its new program. Other than the fact that the ads will come from Federated Media, WordPress.com isn't providing any other details.