I’ve been having a lot of conversations about advertising recently, whether the subject is relevancy, media publishers, or bloggers.

Another Crap Advert by Zohar Manor-Abel on Flickr (CC Licence)

It’s something that the current economic climate has definitely driven to the front of the minds of a lot of people, as they look to the future.

One of the things that struck me is how a downturn in advertising might affect my blogging here and on 140char.com, and then I happened to come across an interesting post by Steve Hodson about Paid Blogging.

I’m lucky enough to have a job I really enjoy, and didn’t start blogging as a way to earn an extra income – for me the intangible benefits are the ones I enjoy, whether it’s sharing ideas, meeting new people, or possibly being able to be involved in new opportunities etc.

But at the same time, I do run Google Adsense advertising on both blogs, along with Amazon Affiliate links in the hope that I can cover my hosting costs, and then spend anything extra on books and gadgets. Plus, it means I have some understanding of how they work if I ever want to consider using them for other projects.

Steve’s post outlines his frustration at being told the advertising model is broken, particularly for an up-and-coming blogger, and yet the alternative revenues that are suggested don’t seem to provide an alternative.

The trouble is that none of the popular internet movements or theories points to a redistribution of wealth necessarily.

Open Source means free as in ‘free speech’, not ‘free beer’.

The Long Tail doesn’t say you can be rich existing in the long tail of content. The success stories are the aggregators, or those that can make it far enough up the tail to make the living they require or aspire to.

Web 2.0 allows you to communicate, collaborate and connect, but some people will gain more from this financially than others.

And too often we miss the fact that many successful people within paid blogging have several projects and revenue streams going on at once, if not hundreds in some cases.

There’s a feeling that by putting hard work into something we’re entitled to get fair payment for our efforts and get the payoff at the end – something that often isn’t true.

Which is why it’s about focusing on making the most of the journey.

And I do disagree with him that bloggers can’t make money from revenue streams aside from advertising. But again, not everyone who self-publishes a book, releases an E-Book, or produces blog-related merchandise will be successful – and we’re still at an evolutionary time for online content and revenue, and for advertiser adoption. But by offering the best possible value proposition for anything you try to monetise, you stand the best possible chance of making it.

And I think 2009 will be a tipping point for new mechanisms of advertising/revenue. Whether it’s from people looking to improve the result for content creators and publishers ( for instance, tools to create your own revenue share and blog network), or improving things for the recipients of revenue efforts.

But I really don’t have the answers here. If I did, I’d have retired to my own island by now! But what I’m really interested is in your opinions, questions and ideas. So how can blogging content creators thrive, and how would/do you monetise it?