Much to my surprise, my blog just reached profitability. Since my costs are nil (other than my time, which like most bloggers apparently isn’t worth much — most of them seem to have way too much time on their hands, don’t they?) Anyway, I put that “Donation” button down the left hand column a few months ago, and lo and behold, I checked my email this morning and some (very cool) person from Connecticut named Mark sent me fifty bucks by PayPal. WooHoo!

Now that’s interesting. Jennifer couldn’t believe it. (Of course she’s the one who thinks updating my blog is a complete waste of time when I should be helping her keep up with the wedding favor site (which is now starting to rank for bridal shower favors. Vindication!)

Donation supported web sites are an interesting phenomenon. I guess that’s how Matt Drudge started. Some people think that “micropayments”are the holy grail of web content. As opposed to selling ads, users can pay, say, one penny per quality page downloaded. The cost would be insignificant and the benefit to the web site owner would add up, allowing him or her to create higher quality content without annoying ads. Here’s an interesting article on the subject. And here’s an article against the idea.

You be the judge. At any rate, fifty bucks isn’t a micropayment. Thanks for the macropayment, Mark!