One can understand their zeal to run on your site... a political blog, after all, would be the place to find people who are into political thrillers. A clear case of targeting the audience.

Big Four? Let's see, here. Seems targeting is everything here, so

HW/SW...(Including cell phones, PDAs and such as well as traditional desktop fare)
Other web Sites.
Entertainment (such as movies)
Cars

Big 4?

* High Amazon ranking for Outsourcing Book;

* Debate with Lou Dobbs on a special edition of Crossfire

* A bit role in Salma Hayak's next film (followed by a dinner with the star)

* A bit role in the next political scandal when it is discovered that a top secret advisory memo you wrote is dicovered in the underwear of an ex-national security advisior.

What kind of backend are we talkin' about here? Is this good cash?

Oh, and there is no big four. If the Congl*merates can hit you up, that's enough; they just need to do demographics.

*by the way I was unable to type out Congl*merates because, apparently, the word phrase l*me is considered questionable content. Somewhat ironic, no. You've got cash now, but your content is compromised.

But really: Why is l*me, that is l...o..m..e, questionable content? Someone fill me in. Please.

I have no idea how "lome" got put on the blacklist -- but the problem has been fixed.

Lome to your heart's content -- whatever that means.

What kind of backend are we talkin' about here?

With Salma Hayak involved? You kidding?

I can't guess the four jewels of the blogosphere, but is sound like good precious stones ("search engines, newspapers, films, and glossy magazines").

I have had the following ads:
- A site defending female beauty (Body in Mind).
- Books (Cox & Forkum's editorial cartoons - "Black & White World" and Burgess Laughlin's "The Aristotle Adventure").
- Art gallery (Cordair Fine Art).
- My friend's gold & silver handicraft business (SJC jewelry).
- Music (René Gruss).
- Web site design / hosting (Elegant Webscapes / Blog Hosting).

All the Best,

Martin Lindeskog
Gothenburg, Sweden.

Lome to your heart's content -- whatever that means

Dan;
Lome is the Capital of Togo, isn't it?

considering that the "big" blogs have monthly readership larger than many political magazines, yes, i think it is a matter of a relatively short time until real money starts coming the way of "big" blogs. the readership is well defined and loyal. even if a blog received 1/10 (1/100?) the advertising revenue of a magazine with similar readership, that would have to work out well for the blogger, no?

Big 4:

- Books
- Video
- Music
- Next-gen, techno-lust gadetry (or actually any highly vertical, niche product appealling to a quality-centered buyer.)

You're only half way there when you finally snag the ads. You know you've really hit the bigtime when your readers will fork over $$ to read the ad-free version of your blog.