This morning I read a short but pithy article by Clive Thompson in Wired magazine, The Problem with Advertising. Mr. Thompson writes about how there is an advantage to actually paying for some web services. This resonates with me. I have found myself buying "upgrades" to various web based services that I use to provide information through my library. My Portaportal site, Library Links, for instance is ad free. I also have paid for a subscription to Jing, which makes my screencasts ad free. The disadvantage is that these are recurring fees and I don't get anything concrete for my money. The advantage is that I am not selling the "eyeballs" of students, teachers, and parents when I recommend (or with students require) that they use these tools.
As I have mentioned before, I do have an organizational Facebook page which of course does have ads. The difference is that although I use Facebook to reach out to constituents, I by no means require or even strongly recommend that anyone use it.
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