Fark Sells Out?
According to this WIRED article from last week, Fark.com is/has been selling prominent placement in its community-submitted list of links. Many blogging advocates (and competitors of Fark) are questioning Fark's methods saying that blogs have yet to slide into the cesspool of sponsorship that many popular websites and e-mail newsletters currently splash around in.

While I'm not going to go so far as to say that blogs shouldn't accept ads or sponsorships, I do think that blogs, since they are more personal in nature than a standard website, need to make sure that they clearly identify what is real content and what is paid advertisement. Trust and credibility are the keys to engaging readers of a blog. It is why so many people are attracted to them (and often repelled by traditional media). Once it seems like there is an agenda other than the author's, it becomes more like every other media outlet.

To my dozens of loyal readers,
You can rest assured that sMoRTy71.com will never be offered (nor will it accept) advertising dollars.