When looking at the difference between a profitable business model and an unprofitable one you really need to look at the math. I recently ran many graphic ads that I bought through Google on a CPM site targeting basis. Here is a look at one campaign:
Notice that the 468 by 60 got a much lower click-through rate than the text ad or other image ad. Why? Some of it may have been up to ad positioning, but part of it is also due to 468 by 60 being the default banner ad size. If it looks like an ad people ignore it.

Just like the 468x60 banners are being worn out, many sites are selling overpriced 125x125 ad buttons. These are not selling because they offer great value, they are selling because the trend started at a few popular sites, and it is easy for the publisher to ask for a lot without giving away too much value.

Low value sites that feature targeted ads as the content (with in content text links) will earn more than high value content which has obvious ad units located in obvious ad spots.

And just how people grow sick of advertising they also grow sick and tired of abused methods and formats, such as:

• pop ups and other intrusive ads

• red headlines
• squeeze pages
• sensational headlines

If you want to make your marketing successful, leverage techniques that are not perceived as being overused and abused to members of your target market. Rather than formatting your ads like ads turn them into content that is formatted like other content people trust and get people talking about it.

Brian Clark posted an entry about how a common enemy strategy can help propel your marketing and further establish a bond between reader and writer.

Effective marketing in a low-trust world means developing a bond with your prospects through your writing. One great way to do this is to share a perceived common enemy with your readers.

We are all flawed. If people feel an emotional bond to your words they will trust you and buy from you much easier than if you are selling without any personality. Even if you are not actively selling anything, having mindshare and distribution is important for when you finally decide to sell something. Everyone is selling...their products and services, ad space, their view of the world, their self-esteem, their need for connection, etc etc etc.

One of the most effective hate marketing campaigns I have ever seen is John T. Reed's anti-guru reviews.

As more large trusted publishers launch ad networks will this force Google to rethink their authority heavy algorithms and ad quality scores that benefit these growing arbitrage plays? Or is Google promoting many small ad networks to spread the portion of the pie that they don't control really thin? Shopping sites like Shopping.com, Yahoo! Shopping, BizRate, and NextTag already dominate Google's organic search results and paid listings.

Ask.com just announced their contextual ad network.

Amazon.com just had a solid quarter, and is selling ads directly via ClickRiver.

Why are ads on Wikipedia unthinkable? Because Jimmy Wales is gathering authority and content, waiting for his search project to launch. Don't be surprised if the Wikipedia contains ads soon after Wikisaria's ad program launches.

How many ad networks will online marketers be willing to sign up for?

If you think the web is full of spam now, wait until you see what it looks like when all the large brands put ads in the content, and when shady publishers have a dozen different distributed ad networks to chose from.

Social news sites come to prominence largely over the controversies associated with people gaming them, and without people gaming them few would ever garner a critical mass. Marketers spamming a social news site is part of the growth cycle.

• Andy Hagans highlighted 17 social sites that send traffic.

• Some authoritative sites like CSS Reboot and Recruiting.com are powered by Pligg.
• You can find thousands of Pligg sites here, and find a few that are relevant to your industry by adding your keywords to this string. For example, business.

If I can come up with an easy search string to detect that many Pligg sites you have to think that as people and spambots abuse them, the search engines will discount most of their votes, but short and long term there is still going to be value to many of them.

Why buy low quality PR2 and PR3 links from inactive parts of the web when you can get on topic ones for free? Of course most of these communities will have limited value and die (failing to build a critical mass), but if you are submitting useful content to the real ones that will also lead to indirect links and other signs of trust and quality.

Content networks with virtually no content cost, free software, and limited editorial control might call people who submit self promotional stuff spammers, but what are all these sites until they build a critical mass? Parasitic useless noise, a form of spam.

The difference between a spammer and a contributor is that a contributor will post at least a few entries that are not self promotional, and they will also create content worthy of exposure. Both of which help build the community.

If you feel bad about gaming markets just remember that every market and every value system is both self-promotional and gamed.

As a background, here are some background tips on formatting linkbait and free linkbait ideas.

Frank Schilling posts his thoughts on SEO while Brian Provost posts how to turn a .org into a .com:

My strategy for .com domain names has generally been to stash them away and forget they exist. I’ll take my SEO skillset and go develop the .org or .net cousins to build the exact same audience thanks to the overweighting of exact match in search engines, leaving the .com domains in the vault to appreciate.

If you are developing an online brand worthy of attention and can't afford the target .com you probably do not need it. Look how popular Del.icio.us got with their terrible domain name. Eventually they got the .com, but they made that investment after they proved their model worked.
Frank posted that he thought SEOs try to think of how they can game engines

Domainers think: "How can I exist without Google .. if Google blew away tomorrow, how could I guarantee traffic delivery?" .. SEO folks seem to think, "How can I get free visits from the top search engine and if that top search engine ever changes, how can I get free traffic from the next top search engine."

I don't think SEOs just look at Google for traffic. I think some of the best SEOs think of the web more in terms of the Cluetrain Manifesto, viewing the web as a series of markets and conversations, realizing that if they are frequently talked about then search rankings are a by-product of that.

If you are just getting into domains right now and want to develop sites that will get ranked you are far better off buying .org or .net domains, and saving the money the .com would have cost you to spend it on marketing and development of your .org or .net. If you are trying to predict new markets that you expect to become huge you may want to buy the .com. If you want to lock out competition buy all 3 extensions.