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I am appalled at the self-righteous, attacking, personal tone that Ken Magill took toward Keri Smith and Jeff Pitcher in his column (Don't Get Him Started, March)

What an ignorant writer. I can't believe such a poor piece of journalism would get that far.

Christine Scott
Clinical Art Therapist
Santa Barbara, CA

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I have just read Ken Magill's March column and wish to complain.

If Mr. Magill wished to open up an intelligent discussion about the use of ads in blogging, then he has failed. Instead we got a nasty, personal attack against two people who have done nothing more than to literally put their money where their mouths are (rather than accepting advertising money on their blogs) and stand up for their principles.

I believe it is right to question the way that advertising seems to interfere with more and more aspects of daily life, certainly with some of the more insidious methods used. (Recently in the United Kingdom we had a campaign aimed at children, via their mobile phones, with the notion of keeping it “secret” from their parents.)

While Mr. Magill makes the point that “…for the vast majority of bloggers, swearing off ads would be akin to me swearing off dating Victoria's Secret models,” perhaps if more grassroots bloggers made a stand against blog advertising then the popular blogs would question whether their integrity is worth a little more than what Amazon, etc. are paying nowadays.

There's a time and a place for advertisements (such as in Keri Smith's illustrating work for various companies), and perhaps blogs should not be that place. Should the Internet be purely about buying stuff? How about connecting people, building relationships, educating and entertaining ourselves?

Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Magill's viewpoint, the unacceptable fact is that he has set out to humiliate Keri Smith and Jeff Pitcher; his tone is vindictive, verging on bullying. In contrast, Keri Smith's writing tends to be gentle and inspiring — even in the post on her site in which she responds to Mr. Magill's comments.

I know which writer I prefer, and know also that I won't be checking out Direct's Web site again. Please think twice before allowing your writers to abuse people in this way.

Katherine Mitchell
Bristol, England

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Ken Magill's recent piece blasting Keri Smith and Jeff Pitcher's Web site (AdFreeBlog.org) was quite puzzling.

I am having trouble understanding why anyone — in particular a purported journalist — would waste so many inches on spewing sophomoric bile in response to something so benign. The only way that Web site could be less in-your-face is if it were invisible.

Quite frankly, as a reader of Keri's blog and as a blogger myself, I find the concept of proclaiming that one's blog is ad-free a little ridiculous. In my world there are bigger fish to fry, and I couldn't care less about ads on blogs one way or another.

But for Mr. Magill to spend so many words in what is tantamount to character assassination of someone so well-intentioned and harmless is completely unjustifiable.

Was he simply low on ideas? What a shame.

Emma Gibson
San Pedro, CA

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I just wanted to say that what Mr. Magill wrote was a piece of total and complete defecation. For the life of me I can't imagine why you published such a steaming pile of feces.

So, whatever it is you're doing there at Direct, I hope that Ken Magill's piece is not representative of the magazine's overall tone. If it is, then I wish you a speedy demise.

Nancy Scorse