This was interesting, the Icerocket Blog Tracker has started using Google ads as a way to monetize the huge number of page views that they get on a daily basis. Nothing wrong with Google ads, but as more sites try to survive the current economic onslaught, things are going to continue to get interesting when it comes to trying to make money on the internet.

Icerocket gets about 237K people a month on their main site, add to that the number of people hitting the six sub domains they have they are ending up with close to a million page views per month. This can translate into some decent numbers for page views, which means Google ads will help them come up with a small amount of cash in relationship to the number of ads that are being clicked on. Of course if you use and love icerocket, you are more likely to click an ad because you see this as something that the company needed to do, and you want to support them.

I really expect to see more of this along the way, surprising to see that it is not on systems like FriendFeed yet (although the new Love button is pretty cool, which kind of comes and goes). The pressure to make money to cover the bills is something that more companies are going to have to do. While you might resent Icerocket for doing this, they had to, if they are going to survive, there is a point where “free” does not help pay the bills, and sometimes you really need to pay the bills.

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