Google Alternatives?

Yahoo YPN - Yahoo publisher Network (YPN) is your best adsense alternative if you live in USA. But they are very rarely accepting new publisher applications for new publishers.
Kontera - Kontera is the second best option which provides inline contextual ads. I have run these ads on one of my sites producing half the income of google adsense.
TNX - TNX is a network where you can sell text links automatically on your site (it works great even for PR0 sites) - Highly recommended.
Widget Bucks - Widget Bucks is a great contextual shopping based advertising network which pays upto %0.50 CPC (which is great) and also gives $25 free just for registeration. Sign Up today, I would say.
Adbrite - Adbrite is your second best adsense alternative (or fist, if you live outside USA) to monetize your website. Please note, you may see very little earnings for first 15 days (or even a month) as they collect your website statistics.
Clicksor - Clicksor is third best adsense alternative. It provides both inline and text-banner contextual ads for your website. So it can also be a good alternative for google adsense.
Text Link Ads - If your site is atleast PR4 or have good alexa then you can earn quite a good amount by selling directory links through 'text link ads'. If your page rank is higer, it can ever surpass your adsense earnings. So go for it. It is highly recommended.
Chitika - Chitika created a lot of noise when it was started as a google adsense alternative. But finally it has stabilized and is a contant good earner.
Bidvertiser - Bidvertiser is also a good contextual ad option for your site. They have been paying from a long time and are quite consistent.
Etology - Etology is a new adsenes alternative and is told to be doing great. Some of the publishers claimed that they are making double with Etology than with Adbrite.
There are other programs which I hightly recommend. These are not the adsense alternatives but can surely complement your revenue with very good payment.
Casale Media - Casale media is one of the best banner advertising network providing one of the best eCPM for your ad space. They provide 728x90, 120x600, 300x250 banners and popups. They payment rates are really really good.
Adversal - Adversal is popup program which pays a huge $6.00 per 1000 unique impressions ($6 CPM). I am getting paid from them on time from last 6 months without any delays ever.
Other than the above mentioned onces, (which I have tested), there are many others like:
TargetPoint
BidClix
AllFeeds
Adhearus
AffiliateSensor
Veoda
RevenuePilot
Kanoodle
Enhance Interactive
Quigo
Intellitxt
Nixxie
InfoGrabber
Miva
SearchFeed

Thanks, but I'm looking for alternatives to AD WORDS not Ad Sense.

Still, I plan to check some of your suggestions out.

Pete

most (if not all) of these are adwords replacements. think about it, when they pay someone for advertising (adsense style) where do you think the clients that pay them are coming from?

i would start off looking at YPN, adbrite, and clicksor. These are very similar to adwords.

i would also strongly consider facebook, they have awesome advertising. honestly there are pleanty of places to look and that list should give you a good start.

Thanks for your input, folks.

Appreciate you!

Pete

People can list all the substitute PPC providers on the Internet, but the short answer is...

No.

There are tons of other platforms for buying paid traffic, but nothing is a good DIRECT alternative to Adwords. Yet.