The gentrification of Blogging is in full swing.
I knew that it was too good to last.
The little niche that we Bloggers have enjoyed is being rammed from behind by the Corporations who view it as just another way to get eyeballs to sling their ADs.
Their weapon is MONEY MONEY MONEY!
Blogging is, was, the cult of the amateur, the avenue of the everyman...and you know what? Blogging IS an obvious evolutionary advancement in Human communication and it should be keeping executives of Radio and Newsprint operations awake at night...TV has a few years left.
Blogging is a vehicle for an interactive exchange of ideas & information. Why shouldn't we the people put in our two cents?
For Centuries we the people have had to passively endure reading & listening to the opinions of a select few blowhards and so-called experts...
now it is our turn..
our time has come...
but it may have already come and gone!
Last week a College chum sent me Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere report. Apparently Bloggers create close to ONE MILLION blog posts a day worldwide, and some of them are actually making a lot of money.
"Blogs with 100,000 or more unique visitors a month earn an average of $75,000 annually and a few make more than $200,000 a year! Business Week reportedthat LOLcat gets $5,600 per month, Overheard in New York $8,100 per month, and Perez Hilton $111,000."
To my way of thinking Perez Hilton (I even loathe his hijacked name) is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with this picture..do the rest of us deserve to watch such vapid, blatant, suckholing get rewarded? I think not.
The lure of living vicariously through cyber-association with a so-called popular Blogger over-rides our powers of descretion. Guilt by association.
Afterall, we live in a world where Adam Sandler can get $50 Million a movie? The Cult of Celebrity reigns supreme.
Some Blog-dude named Shoemoney posted a photo of himself holding a Google cheque for one month of 'clicks' for $132,994.97?
"Once a blog hobbyist goes pro, he or she faces a daily pressure to churn out new material. In the wrong mind, that can lead to top-10 lists, recycled ideas, half-baked notions, lots of viral videos, and a general increase in information pollution."
"Do we get the blogs we deserve? We vote by click, after all. Perhaps we shouldn't look at all those top 10 lists and Britney Spears photos. Successful blogs, such as Zen Habits, tend to balance the more fast-food type posts with longer, more complex ideas that will presumably keep readers coming back—although there are plenty of people who make a living posting dubious crap."
There are a few journalists, pundits and wonks out there who do know what they are talking about and we should listen to their analysis of current events. Have you noticed how much attention the NEWS Media pays to Bloggers now?
Most of us Blog for fun, DON'T WE?
We do it to escape our invisibility in the modern world, for the social aspects, to meet interesting people from different parts of the world and share a laugh, our interests, and unleash a rant or two.
That being said if some CORPORATION was willing to send you a cheque for $5 Grand a month to show their ADs you'd be crazy NOT to take it?
You wouldn't say no..would you?
Would your EGO kidnap your creativity and force you to churn out filler?
I don't know who any of those people are so obviously count me out - I only talk to friends - isn't that what we're doing?
ReplyDeleteI am sticking to the principle that no one, under any circumstances, would pay for the stuff I write. (They may pay me to stop).
ReplyDeleteBut then, I don't write a million posts a day.
ZIGGI
ReplyDeleteExactly...and perhaps we are also trying to assuage the mindnumbing tedium and relentless monotony of NOT being rich and famous.
VICUS
I like that idea.
Why wouldn't 'the MAN' redesign the shotgun approach to collecting eyeballs and simply eliminate all of the chaff so that advertisers didn't need to pay so many crappy bloggers?
Even if 'they' just paid me a measely stipend I would shut up.
What? Not a question to ask a self styled poet like me. Leave my poetry and dish out crap? There are better ways to earn money than by blogging. And if money was the only criteria I wouldn't be teaching under-privileged girls.
ReplyDeleteHell, I am getting serious here. Too much work for YOUR brain to fathom me out....
Most of you at some point have offered to pay me to stop blogging.
ReplyDeletei have sold my soul.
ReplyDeletefor a measly $5 a post.
LOL to those above saying folks would pay you to STOP blogging. =)
ReplyDeleteDepends - if I was out of work and had 10 kids to feed who knows?
ReplyDeleteEasy for me to be principled.
Oh and I think Adam Sandler is quite cute - shame about the films though.
Would advertisers pay me to be exposed to the same ten people every day?
ReplyDeleteIf so, bring it on!
I don't really care. Good for them, if they can make a buck out of blogging. Heck, if I could earn my living by watching trashy TV and commenting on it, I would too. Sadly, I loathe TV and all it's pseudo-celebs.
ReplyDeleteAs for the ego kidnapping creativity and forcing you to churn out filler... well, why aren't you attacking the trashy fantasy novel authors?!
NB: I love fantasy. GOOD fantasy. Just don't get me started on the trash!
Gosh, I could keep earning $300 a week as a office file clerk or $10,000 a month making up crap on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI hate my life.
Fuck the money. The reason I blog is because its much warmer than waving your cock at the Christian Fellowship in the bus station after midnight.
ReplyDeleteI blog for me.. here endeth the lesson.
Amen. Now where do I sign up?
ReplyDeleteHelp, someone pay me to STOP blogging!
ReplyDelete$5 a month? WTF thats worse than a beggar's salary.
Im not in this for monaaay..:)
Keshi.
Now wait a sec.....filler.....that's all I cram my blog with anyway....you mean I could actually get PAID to do this? HOW MUCH?
ReplyDeleteOh, and I write some pretty good pablum to!
interesting how people came into a free medium and actually demanded to pay for average, isn't it?
ReplyDeletei wouldn't turn either one of my blogs commercial, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't write a commercial blog. hell yes, I'd do 'product' and cash the check with a smile on my face. it beats a peck in the head with a sharp rock.
Blogging is fun for me; getting paid would seem like a bonus, but not necessary for blogging. In fact, it could be detrimental to the creative and thought evolving process, because the drive to write would change. The need to express will be overshadowed by the need to get paid. I don't do it for the money, I do it because it is a freeing experience.
ReplyDeleteHey... I give a stuffed duck what you think. And I'm no-one.
ReplyDeletePenny for the guy?
Blogging is "the avenue of the everyman..." -- that's great, a perfect descriptive.
ReplyDeleteWhen you bring bucks into it, it stops becoming that, although you can't blame people for doing it if the offers are coming in.
It's all about the people you meet and the exchange of ideas you talk about, the expanding of horizons.
It allows like-minded people to socialize, as if they were at a party with friends, chatting.
The mainstream media doesn't KNOW how to blog like that.
TAMI
ReplyDeleteHuh? I'm afraid that your terse reply is quite literally "Too much work for YOUR brain to fathom me out"!
I am comletely unaware if advertisers flog their wares on Poetry blogs..prolly not...
since Poets are generally regarded as long-suffering, hermitic, solipstic-soliloquists, who eschew having any contact with the day to day tedium of modern society.
MJ
and yet here you are?
MISTI
That's $5 more than I get for bearing my soul and ripping my heart out on the table to be stomped on! HA!
SUSANNITY
That's actually not as crazy as it sounds..I once thought of posting YouTubian hits from the 70s until I got paid to stop..
how many times do you wanna hear Muskrat Love?
KAZ
I'm not sure what type of person pays to see the last 5 Adam Sandler movies but I did enjoy the Wedding Singer and Happy Gilour.
GEOFF
ReplyDeleteIf they are the 'right' ten people then yes, yes they would.
STACE
I am not attacking the trashy fantasy authors because I don't know who they are..if you would be so kind as to supply me with their names I will make time to ridicule them, mercilessly.
ALLAN
If I could figure out how to make Ten-Large a month making up crap on the Interwebs I would...in a heartbeat.
BOLLIX
..and with the sly introduction of a 'blogging' defense during the inevitable criminal proceedings in a court of Law, it's a lot easier for your scheming lawyer to diffuse the unbridled anger of and invoke a measure of sympathy from a jury of 'their' peers.
ANDREA
At Adsense or Stumbleupon.
How much do they want to pay you?
ANDREA
ReplyDelete...I wasn't quite finished. Every single 'increase your traffic site' was an American and geared towards making money. As you know their mantra is anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
This is why Blogging is getting innundated with wannabe 'Authors/Celebs' and it's a crying shame.
KESH
That was 5-GRAND a month. If beggars in Sydney are making 60-large per annum then I am so there!
THE MICHAEL
Yes. Apparently some folks get paid to blog? I defer to H L Mencken once again and paraphrase his quote on Democracy;
"BLOGGING is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
NATIONS
Me too! I would love to do a commercial, cheesy, frivolous, vapid, stream-of-consciousness, fluffy, mundane, Celeb filled filler Blog. I can't imagine the guilt of being remunerated for it but I'm sure that I could learn to cope.
EROSWINGS
You're preachin' to the choir Brutha! Not that there is anything wrong with getting a Penny for your thoughts, but famous people either have outrageously HUGE Egos and believe their own spin or unbearable guilt for pulling one over on others..the Wizard Of Oz complex.
Not many people could handle it.
GORDIE
How about Canard L'Orange? Or even Pheasant Under Glass?
Once you realise that the great unwashed voted for Bush..
TWICE!..
it's easy to summize that the lowest common denominator is a lot further down than you had ever imagined.
WINKY
The Media doesn't get it because everything is about the almighty f*cking dollar! Unfortunately there are many out here amongst us who also adhere to that mission statement.
I was really depressed after searching those traffic generator sites..to them it's all about getting paid to blog.
I am amazed at how much attention CNN is 'paying' to Blogs during this election. Most of the wonk-Blogs are rehashing mainline News items..the big difference is that the Bloggers don't need to waste time double checking sources and facts and can liberally disseminate their personal opinions and beliefs..so the Journalists are jealous as hell.
That's why the Journalists all have their own Blogs now to try to recapture their status and put the upstarts back in their holes..
I call it www.whack-a-mole.
Brilliant post HE. And encapsulating so many of our valid fears about the way the Blogosphere is going.
ReplyDeleteAnything good and original seems to be hi-jacked by big business sooner or later.
And I speak as someone who wants to 'make it' and earn money from my writing yet I have managed not to stoop so low as to adopt the brown-nosing of big hit blogs or have ads on my own blog to generate traffic.
Your blog is so original, like Mrs G of Derfwad Manor I am sure word of mouth plays a big part in your success (which of course deserves to be in the same league of hits as the best political or commercial blog)
You couldn't pay me to blog, babe.
ReplyDeleteI'm to vulgar and crude and totally against all things which generate cash..
well, accept my job.
POET LAURA-EATE
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should start a contrarian organisation dedicated to 'keepin' it real'...blogging for fun, friendship and fulfilment.
How about calling ourselves HobBloglins a skewering of Hobgoblins Hobbist/Blogger/Goblins
"In the Spiderwick Chronicles Hobgoblins able to bestow the ability see other magical creatures unto ordinary humans, which usually involves them spitting into the eyes of the mortal to whom they wish to endow it.
Hobgoblins are unable to "shut down" their invisibility like most Faeries, making them permanently invisible to ordinary humans, which must be how and why they evolved the power to bestow the Sight to any mortal to which they wish to endow it."
HobBloglins?
CATSCRATCHY
Why do you say it like that? Those are all good things!
I'm sure that my resolve would vanish in a heartbeat if they backed up a truck full of $100s.
five grand a month...I might.
ReplyDeletefive dollars a post...no way.
that is the beauty of blogging...everyone gets to do whatever they want. If we don't like it...we don't have to read it. How cool is that?
i won't be able to say no unfortunately... i'm easy that way :)
ReplyDeletebut then again... this would never happen to me so no worries :)~
I'd take the cash - 5,000 dollars buys a lot of pig feed - but it wouldn't be blogging, not really.
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head HE. Journalists are desperate to keep up, so trot out these pathetic "blogs" when their time would be better spent on real journalism.
Breaker breaker one-nine for the Pareto Hilton. What's yer 20?
ReplyDeleteI figured that blogging would be a fad like CB radio until this disgusting commercial development. For that matter, I can remember when the whole Internet was Adspam free, and you didn't have to pay for porn.
I have a strict rule not to click through a websense (etc.) ad. If I see something I like, I Google it and avoid the paid stuff on top. I will never take money. If you do, the next thing you know, someone is pressuring you about your content. At the very least, they will be pointing out that you can make more money by not "offending" people.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton.
ReplyDeleteCecilia Dart-Thornton.
ReplyDeleteThere was one blog I used to read but it was so full of ads that I couldn't be bothered with it in the end because it was clear that the person was only trying to make money out of it and their heart wasn't in writing at all. I think blogging should be for the sheer enjoyment and socialisation aspects of it.
ReplyDeleteAs with pretty much everything (including horse training) as soon as you start doing it for the money, it's shit!
ReplyDeleteoops 5grand a month? wow!
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
Muskrat Suzie, Muskrat Sam - hey are you saying there's something wrong with that song? Next you're going to say groups like "Bread" are hard on the ears?!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could say I was young enough to plead ignorance... =P
Blogging seems to be a flexible enough thing to cater for all sorts. Fake Steve Jobs etc make you realise it can be just about money/brand building/profile raising. Copyblogger has almost daily advice on how to improve your writing so as to attract readers and therefore increase your money. I love reading that stuff. And not doing anything like that on my blog.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I already write copy for a living so when it gets to the personal blog, all I want to do is kvetch and rant. So then I come here and read yours, which is much more effective and prettier.