Blog Bumper Stickers

On the surface, Blog Bumper Stickers looks just like any other blog with cool freebies for you.

You can choose badges about anything from Myspace to Master Chief.

A closer look, however, reveals that the blog is actually hosted by an online dating service called Just Say Hi.

But you probably won’t notice that until you try putting a badge on your blog.

You’ll discover, to your surprise, that the HTML code you’ve just copied-and-pasted includes a text link ad for ‘Chicago Dating’.

Or was it Philly?

Funny.

Especially when it’s sitting right under a Cyberdemon from Doom.

It’s a little sneaky to be hardcoding your ads into cute little buttons that people are bound to download, but I got a little brainwave while I was silently disapproving of their practices.

What if you were to target the ads properly?

What if you struck deals with websites that were relevant to your audiences?

And taking it a little further, what if you kept the hidden text link ads as a prerequisite to installing a bumper sticker on your blog, but also allowed your audiences to choose their own text link ads?

I bet a person who installs a Master Chief button wouldn’t mind it that much if their text link ad directed readers to Gamespy, wouldn’t you agree?

Imagine if you could pair up the Sushi badges with the nearest Sushi bars in town. Or the geek badges to Techcrunch. Or the ‘i love my ibook’ badges to Apple stores.

Damn. Figure out a clever advertising model, and you’d be rolling in AdSense dollars in next to no time.

Well, it’s just a thought, anyway.