atladsenser - 9:01 pm on Aug 2, 2012 (gmt 0)

Wow, had no idea my post would spark such a great discussion. It's been fascinating to read about your experiences, and the decisions you've made to stick with your sites or make other career/job moves.

One lesson I think I've learned from all of this is, especially if I try to build another site or perhaps even an app someday, is to come up with an idea that works no matter what platform it's on -- browser-based web, mobile phone or tablet. Or whatever new device they come up with in the future. ;)

Because the user experience on my site is tied so closely to the desktop web -- delivering information largely in text article format, clicking on text links to move around the site, navigation bars and landing pages and the like -- it would require a lot of re-thinking for a platform on which the user experience involves swiping, pinching and zooming like the more visual smartphone/tablet platform.

It sounds like netmeg at least has made significant headway into generating revenue from mobile traffic, which is encouraging to hear. I share your concerns about mobile ads, though; they're not tied as directly into the experience of consuming the content as web browser-based display and text ads are, and so I would predict that they'd get far fewer clicks, and more accidental ones as well. Like the story of the Zen master from "Charlie Wilson's War," however, we'll just have to wait and see how that plays out.

My hope is that the big guys don't forget that it's the little guys who write and create all of the content that gets shared on the large social networks and sites, and unless we can make a meaningful return on the time we spend to create it, there won't be any content to share on their platforms. I'm not saying I expect to hit the jackpot, but I'd like to make it worth my while to continue investing my time and energy into my site projects (and so far, I've been very happy with what I've been able to make). AdSense has its flaws, as we all know, but it's also funded an amazing amount of creativity on the web. Hopefully something new will come along to help content producers in whatever the mobile web becomes.