Ah, the ever controversial question of when should one start to monetize his blog. If you ask 100 bloggers what they think about it, I am sure you will get 101 different answers.

When the News Corporation added MySpace to its portfolio nearly three years ago, it expected that if its base of 16 million users kept growing — and each user kept adding friends, sharing photos and swapping flirty messages — the advertising dollars would roll in.

So it was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin’ Donuts spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company’s ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh.

Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.

Cranky opinions and advice from the ceo of a pretty big ad agency

NEVER mind brainstorms. These days, Madison Avenue is all about brain waves.

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Facing a bruising fight over climate change, the coal industry is on the political offensive this election year to ensure that no matter who wins in November, so does coal.

Social ads have social consequences. Josh Kopelman, Managing Director of VC firm First Round Capital, recently found that out. Kopelman, a very savvy web 2.0 investor who got in early with StumbleUpon, Odeo, LinkedIn, and others, tried an experiment with Facebook's controversial SocialAds advertising system. He spent $50 to test the platform, with an advertisement for his VC fund. Specifically he ran an advert targeting Yahoo and Microsoft employees who may be thinking of leaving their jobs to do a startup (see top left image).

Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider alerts us to a new offering from Google: the ability to purchase ads within newspapers that contain a 2D bar code. If a consumer sees such an ad, they can capture a picture of the barcode, and special software will then de-code it and send them to a specified page on the mobile Web. Apparently, this advertising format is already gaining popularity in Japan.

This ad will be running in the New York Times Book Review on this coming Sunday, January 13th. I just thought I'd let everyone know! I've uploaded the PDF version of this ad here as well, in case you feel like printing it and doing something with it. Any creative ideas for promoting the book?