A friend of mine went into journalism after his medical studies, and he is now editor-in-chief of a large newspaper.

We had sushi a few weeks ago, and among other things we discussed my favourite spare-time project... the 99nicu community.

One issue is what I believe is a conflict how we run 99nicu: the idea of true independence (from the market) and the fact the funding is needed to maintain the community.

My friend enlightened me how the media world works: although information wants to be free and independent, someone has to pay for it. And, noone questions the validity and independence of der Spiegel, le Monde, the Guardian or the New York Times, for the fact that they are all funded by adverts. To accomplish to their publicistic missions, they have big market departments trading ad space for money.

I do not intend to compare New Your Times and 99nicu, but my friend has a point, we need funding too.

I promise that 99nicu will not drown in adverts, but I feel more confident about the necessity of selling ad space in our newsletter 99nicu News and make sponsors sign up for display of their logos here at the web site. Today, 99nicu has more than 100 unique visitors per day, and the possibility to reach the highly specific audience we represent should be attractive for companies marketing products in neonatal medicine.

Bottomline: it is true - there is no such thing as a free lunch.