Not sure if it qualifies, as I actually managed to make money for a few months, but: MyGuestmap (now long dead) - started it in 2007, put Google Ads and some donation button. It allowed people to create their own little maps and embed them on blogs, where people could place pins and say something.
Got to 40k maps in a few months (it somehow got viral in a forum, then went from there). I even made $1k in ads one month. Some of the users included indie artists, setting up maps for fans, and diverse groups of people (there was a map for "moms of kids with cancer", for instance, which is pretty cool)
Then Google banned me for serving ads in porn sites. Then Paypal banned me (and took my funds) for taking money from shady accounts. Then my hosting service asked me to leave because they found "adult pics" on my site. A quick audit on the profile pics revealed that there were quite a few maps with porn content (including all the illegal stuff). I took stuff down as fast as I could, but never managed to get Google to pay me again. Tried my luck with a few redesigns, setting up a new adsense account (got shutdown immediately), etc. In the end, I let the domain expire and that was that. At least I didn't spend a lot of time or money on it...
Ouch.
Edit: registrar > hosting service
Got to 40k maps in a few months (it somehow got viral in a forum, then went from there). I even made $1k in ads one month. Some of the users included indie artists, setting up maps for fans, and diverse groups of people (there was a map for "moms of kids with cancer", for instance, which is pretty cool)
Then Google banned me for serving ads in porn sites. Then Paypal banned me (and took my funds) for taking money from shady accounts. Then my hosting service asked me to leave because they found "adult pics" on my site. A quick audit on the profile pics revealed that there were quite a few maps with porn content (including all the illegal stuff). I took stuff down as fast as I could, but never managed to get Google to pay me again. Tried my luck with a few redesigns, setting up a new adsense account (got shutdown immediately), etc. In the end, I let the domain expire and that was that. At least I didn't spend a lot of time or money on it...
Ouch.
Edit: registrar > hosting service