Okay I lied. I was going to start work on my Leonard Da Vinci Moment, honest, but then I stumbled across what looks like a great new revenue stream for blogs and other websites.

It’s called TopSpots and is basically a “tip jar” or “make a donation” button with a twist. Visitors to your blog or website can thank you for your efforts by making a donation and in return they get a link on whatever page(s) your TopSpots widget appears and hopefully some traffic too.

I saw it in action over at Sean Collin’s excellent affiliate marketing blog and I’ve just put one on entrepreneur.co.uk - it’s in the right hand column near the top. Links are added (subject to approval) to the list at the number one position and stay in my TopSpots until they work their way down to the tenth position and are eventually bumped off.

Signing up and making your first widget takes no more than a couple of minutes and Scratchback take a share of any tips you receive (currently 10% after Paypal fees). You can set the tip at whatever you want from a dollar upwards and can also choose how long the link appears in your TopSpots. The links also have “No Follow” hardcoded into them so there’s no problem with regards to Google search engine rankings.

Give it a go on one of your own sites.