Ok, so this is probably OBVIOUS from that shiny ad over there, but I didn’t want to be all sneaky about it and I wanted to explain WHY.

1. I heart BlogHer. For those who don’t yet know it, BlogHer describes itself as “the community for women who blog; you say it, we share it.” I went to my first BlogHer conference in 2007 and loved it from the first shalom. I learned a ton and credit the organization for helping me take all this blogging to the next level. I’ll be at BlogHer 2009, hopefully, this year too – it’s in Chicago, my hometown. And it’s their fifth anniversary this year!

2. I appreciate the mojo of the women who started BlogHer, and share their mission: increased visibility, support, and tools for women seeking to get their messages out there, via blogging in this case. I also appreciate their entrepreneurial spirit. Full disclosure: BlogHer and their bloggers share any ad revenue that comes in.

3. I’ve watched the trend of ads at political blogs unfold and have totally made peace with it. Many if not most of the progressivey bloggers I know and admire have incorporated ads on their sites over the past year. At first, I was hesitant, but I have come to feel that it is a-ok to try to earn a little extra from blogging, even when blogging is not itself commercially motivated. You won’t see the content change in any way, shape, or form. I promise. Except, of course, for this post.

4. We’re bringing on interns to help us develop now that we have gone group and there’s a whole lot more going on. And currently they are working for free. We’d like to change that.

If you have questions, comments, concerns, I do hope you’ll voice them in comments. And we here at GWP are more than happy to answer any questions! We are all learning as we go.

Speaking of learning as we go, a few preliminaries:
-Some ads are flash right now, but we’re opting for static, so that should change soon.
-We can also opt out of certain campaigns, so if you see an ad for Barbie or anything, know that I’m on it.  Of course, “or anything” is relative, but if you see something, say something, and we will definitely check it out!