Robert Scoble, June 2, 2006:

It is a nutty world we’re all connected to, isn’t it?

To me, I don’t trust someone who’s solely in it for the money. That’s the way lots of companies behave. Heck, I even behave that way sometimes. But my best work is when I’m doing something for fun, or in support of a philosophy, like ‘the world needs better software.’ Blogging lets me communicate with you about when I’m not just thinking about business. Why? Cause there isn’t a business model on my blog. It’s why I’m turning down free stuff now, why I don’t have ads here, etc. Yeah, my audience does give me career power, but that’s not why I started it and it’s not what drives me to share my life with you.

The impression that I get from that paragraph is that he doesn’t run ads on his site because he worries it would taint the communication between he and his readers.

Today, on Tech Crunch, I read that the tainting of the conversation isn’t something Robert cares about anymore…

Robert Scoble, who has long been proud of the fact that his popular blog remains free of advertisements or sponsorships, will soon put ads on his site, he told me yesterday.

The change comes as part of his move to Fast Company, who will sell the ads on his behalf and will also be redesigning the site.

Scoble and Dave Winer have been the main proponents of advertising-free blogs over the years, arguing that it creates conflicts that should be avoided.

Now, understand that I don’t fault people for making money with their blogs. I don’t even fault them completely when they turn their blogs into a link farm for payday loans and office furniture in Zimbabwe. What gets me, though, is that Mr. Naked Conversations himself used to think that the conversation and the communication between he and his readers was the most important thing. Now, it seems, that all the ethical issues he once had are gone, and his blog will now be designed by Fast Company and stocked with ads courtesy of them.

The question of course is obvious.

Did he suddenly have an epiphany about having ads on his site that was ushered in by a few dollar bills waved under his nose?

OR

Does he still think the way he used to and he just doesn’t care anymore about the naked conversation between he and his readers?

One of those questions has to have an answer of “yes” or we wouldn’t be reading about him running ads now after resisting for all this time.