How much bloggers make, and at what cost

NY Times: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.

SAN FRANCISCO — They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment. ...

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he said. ...

Mike has threatened to quit TechCrunch before. You'd think by now he would have found a way to make this work for him.

Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month. ...

Sounds right, from my experience. As Doc Searls says, you should make money through blogging, not by blogging.

April 5, 2008 at 08:54 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

So you want to be a blogging star?

Paul Boutin in the New York Times: So You Want to Be a Blogging Star? All about Xeni Jardin (above), Mark Cuban and other A-listers. For typical bloggers, don't expect to get rich.

Philip Kaplan, president for products at AdBrite, cautions that only one in six blogs draws even 500 page views a day. At that pace, you would make at most $45 a month, even if the site were decked out with full-page ads. Mr. Kaplan estimates only 3 percent of active sites make more than $1,000 a month from advertising. ...

March 21, 2008 at 10:06 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (3) | | (0)

Blogging networks raising $$

At TechCrunch, Mike Arrington rants about blogging networks raising money.

Just a month ago VentureBeat reported a $320,000 raise. In 2007 we saw Sugar Inc. ($10 million), GigaOm ($1 million), Xconomy, Blogher ($3.5 million) and The Huffington Post ($10 million) raise venture capital. That’s at least $25 million in 2007 invested in blogs and blog networks. ...

March 20, 2008 at 01:03 AM in Citizen media, New media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Advice to Ehud Olmert, blogger

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office started a blog to coincide with Olmert's diplomatic visit to Japan. It's bureaucratic crap.

At Haaretz, Marco Greenberg offers advice to the fledgling blogger and head of state.

March 10, 2008 at 05:58 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Of bloggers, political reporters and what journalism has become

Political blogger DavidNYC in today's DailyKos brilliantly analyzes why bloggers and traditional media's political reporters are like oil and water. I think he's dead on -- and it's a telling indictment of modern journalism: 

I submit the following:

•     Science reporters love science
•     Sports reporters love sports
•     Political reporters hate politics
  

These are broad generalizations, no doubt. But I think there's a lot of truth to them, truth which can teach us about ourselves, about the traditional media, and about the relationship between us.

I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I say that science reporters love science. They thrill to the genome, the Hubble Deep Field, exobiology, exoplanetology, the Large Hadron Collider, stem cells, Schroedinger, Hawking, Wiles, Lake Vostok and coral reefs. Love of the subject is why they went into science reporting in the first place. ...

But oh - the political reporters. They are a breed apart. They like politics-as-theater: Hillary's pantsuit, Obama's turban, the Clenis, the flight-suit, America's Mayor, dead-or-alive, he-said, she-said and all the world's a stage.

But they hate what we identify as politics: winning elections because they matter; ensuring our judiciary respects the Constitution; passing legislation to help the disadvantaged, the middle class, the environment, the world.

They hate all this because our brand of politics is about caring, and there is nothing more uncool, more gauche, more unacceptable than caring. Like the astrophysics geek (of course), or the armchair sabermetrician, we politi-philes are nerds at heart - nerds who care about our chosen subject, and nerds who care about outcomes.

I think we all know that political reporters, on the other hand, are the ultimate post-ironic kool kidz, snickering in the corner at us propeller-heads who wear our hearts on our sleeves. Sports writers understand that, in the end, what they write about really almost always is just a game. The problem is that political reporters think the same way about their beat as well.

And this, I think, explains the antagonistic view many political reporters have toward bloggers. I think it almost boggles their minds that there are people out there - normal, ordinary people - who care about politics and aren't paid to do so. At the same time, we despise the Maureen Dowd-style obsessions shared by such a wide swath of the political reporting class, and we have a hard time respecting anyone who doesn't take politics as seriously as we do.

Put another way, political reporters hate what we love and love what we hate. This stands in stark contrast to the science and sports worlds - examples which I picked in part because these are other interests of mine, but also because I think they are good stand-ins for just about any other topics. Sports & science reporters & bloggers have plenty in common; political reporters and bloggers share little.

I'm not sure, though, that political reporters could really have any other m.o. The twentieth-century invention of "objective" reporting all but prohibits reporters from caring about political outcomes. This means that the kind of people attracted to political reporting almost necessarily have to find politics appealing only as some sort of grand kabuki.

It wasn't always this way - the slavish obeisance to "objectivity" replaced what used to be sharp-elbowed partisanship in American print media. But could our frayed modus vivendi with the political press corps actually be preferable to the alternative?

March 2, 2008 at 10:46 PM in Media, Politics, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Roles of bloggers, journalists blurring more than ever

Mark Glaser at PBS's MediaShift: Distinction Between Bloggers, Journalists Blurring More Than Ever.

The time-worn debate of Bloggers vs. Journalists has finally run its course. For years, traditional journalists scoffed at bloggers as pajama-wearing screamers, while bloggers have pointed to MSM (mainstream media) as secretly biased and obsolete. While the extremists in this argument have had the stage shouting at each other loudly (and it continues to this day), what has happened quietly in the background has received less attention: Mainstream media reporters have started blogging in droves, while larger blog operations have hired seasoned reporters and focused on doing traditional journalism.

How indistinguishable are large independent blogs and traditional media sites? Take the following quiz:

1. Who won a recent Polk Award for investigative journalism, a blogger or MSM reporter?
2. Which big New York-based website has four editors and four reporters, and is looking to hire two more reporters — a blog or traditional media outlet?
3. Which site hired a young blogger fresh out of college? Blog or MSM site?
4. Which site in Silicon Valley edits 80% of stories before being published online? Blog or MSM site?

Answers: 1. Josh Marshall, Talkingpointsmemo blogger;
2. Gawker blog;
3. NYTimes.com, hiring TVNewser’s Brian Stelter;
4. GigaOm blog. ...

"I think the argument about bloggers vs. journalists has been over for years. We've all co-existed just fine for a while now, and the truth is, the distinction is less relevant every day. There are thousands of journalists who now blog, and there are lots of bloggers who are trained journalists. Josh Marshall winning a Polk Award is a sign that the distinctions are becoming less relevant. I don't think readers care whether what they're reading is in a blog or not. What they care about is whether they trust the source of that information, whether it's a mainstream site or a pure blog." — Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com

Great quote from Brady. It's a point Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and I (and others) have been making for years, and it's good to see it becoming a widespread reality.

February 28, 2008 at 03:04 PM in Citizen media, Media, New media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Blogger loses day job with CNN over blogging

From Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog: Blogger loses day job with CNN over blogging.

Let’s file this one under unreal. Chez Pazienza, a producer at CNN assigned to American Morning, was unceremoniously fired from his job today — without severance — over the content of his popular and edgy blog, Deus Ex Malcontent (warning: adult language). He had worked for CNN for four years, beginning as a Senior Producer in Atlanta. ...

CNN has never changed its tune, and moves like this just show how out of touch it continues to be in the new age of participation.

February 12, 2008 at 10:49 PM in Free speech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

DEMO now underway

The DEMO conference is underway in Palm Desert, Calif.

Flickr photos here (and may I say, it's just lazy not to attach captions to your photos?), and a few videos on Brightcove, but there's the usual tight control that makes looking for blog feeds about the conference on the conference site fruitless.

So, read about it in your favorite traditional media outlet, or hunt and peck on Technorati.

January 29, 2008 at 11:01 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

How readable is your blog?

Here's a fun little online gadget: The Blog Readability Test. Just plunk in your url to determine what level of education is required to understand your blog.

Junior high school for Ourmedia
College undergrad for SocialMedia
College postgrad for Darknet

Thanks to Markus Sandy for the pointer.

December 28, 2007 at 11:11 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Scoble marks 7 years of blogging

Scoble has been blogging for 7 years -- didn't know it, but he began about 5 months before I did (when Dave Winer gave me my first blog). A lot has changed in the past decade, and Robert goes over it.

December 21, 2007 at 12:05 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Bloglines finally gets an upgrade

TechCrunch reports on Web-based RSS feed reader Bloglines finally getting A Triple Dose Of New Features.

December 18, 2007 at 12:32 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (2) | | (0)

Austin leads Top 10 Blogging Cities list

SF Chronicle: Nielsen Media Research tallies the top cities for blogging in the U.S.:

1. Austin, Texas (15% of adults going on the Web to read or contribute to a blog in the past 30 days)
2. Portland, Oregon (14%)
3. San Francisco Bay Area (13%)
4. Seattle (13%)
5. Honolulu (a surprise to me)
6. San Diego
7. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
8. Columbus, Ohio
9. Nashville, Tenn.
10. Colorado Springs, Colo.

December 16, 2007 at 01:43 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Top 100 blogs for news

Assistant professor Carlos Guestrin and his students at Carnegie Mellon University compiled a list of the best 100 blogs to read to find the biggest news on the Web as early as possible. It includes well-known blogs, such as Instapundit and Boing Boing, but also some more obscure ones like Watcher of Weasels and Don Surber.  Thanks to Chris Pirillo for the pointer.

November 22, 2007 at 06:30 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Congressman gets blogger fired

Daily Kos: Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, gets a blogger fired from a newspaper-sponsored group blog.

November 2, 2007 at 08:05 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

BBC trains Iranian journalists

At PBS's MediaShift blog, Mark Glaser takes an exclusive look at an innovative distance learning and online training program for Iranian journalists run by the BBC World Service Trust. Mark says, "While some Iranian journalists have been arrested trying to get training overseas, BBC is teaching them with online modules, mentoring and via private and public forums on the Persian-language online magazine, ZigZag."

October 19, 2007 at 03:35 PM in International, New media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Post Pub: A meeting place for authors & bloggers

Here's a new site that I already like: Post Pub: A meeting place for authors, readers & bloggers. Created by Kristen Havens of 563 Media, the site's focus is on the art of blogging as it relates to the business of publishing." Says Kristen:

I will be using the space to highlight the best blogging by published book authors (both novelists and non-fiction writers). The Post Pub will also explore how (and if) blogs, social networks, viral video, podcasts, memes, and contests -- basically, all digital media -- help the cause of promoting books and the love of reading.

If you stop by in the next few days, you'll be able to catch my first author interview: Billy Mernit, the blogger behind Living the Romantic Comedy and author of the screenwriting classic Writing the Romantic Comedy. His novel, Imagine Me and You, will be published by Random House (Shaye Areheart) in April 2008.

October 15, 2007 at 12:55 AM in Books, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (2)

NPR courts the blogger set

SF Chronicle: NPR courts post-boomer, tech-savvy set with blog.

"When you listen to 'All Things Considered' or 'Morning Edition,' they are highly produced to such a degree that the sheets are pretty well pressed. Well, this ('The Bryant Park Project') is a show where the sheets are kind of messy," [said an NPR vp]. ...

Bloggers aren't treated as a curiosity, but as analysts in their own right.

October 4, 2007 at 10:34 PM in Radio/audio, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

NY Times Link Generator: thanks, and see ya!

   

I've been using an online tool called the New York Times Link Generator (devised by Aaron Swartz) to create special "back-door" urls for New York Times stories that began disappearing behind the for-pay wall at TimesSelect two years ago. The special arrangement -- a really terrific service -- was set up by Dave Winer. The idea was to keep Times stories part of the discussion in the blogosphere after they entered the paper's archives. Here's what the urls looked like:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/technology/27micro.html?ex=1345867200&
amp;en=c85021f82cc954b3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Times op-ed columnists were not part of this arrangement, alas, which led to much criticism directed at the Times from here, Doc, Dan, the Daily Kos and elsewhere. (I questioned NY Times senior VP of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz about it at Syndicate two years ago.)

As of a couple of days ago, I no longer have to use the Times Link Generator thanks to the Times' decision to open up its archives and "tear down this wall!," as Reagan might have put it. Edward Bohan of the New York Times' corporate communications department confirmed that today, saying:

There's no longer a need for you to go through the extra step of using a permanent web link generator. Every article's URL from 1987-Present will remain active and freely accessible to all.

Dave Winer says he'll be writing something soon about the implications of the Times' opening up its rich archives. Looking forward to that.

September 24, 2007 at 06:56 PM in Media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tips on how to make money blogging

Most bloggers will tell newcomers that you're not likely to make any money by blogging -- at least not at first. But for those starting out, as well as veterans, Ilana deBare at the San Francisco Chronicle has a good set of tips on how to make money with your blog:

Q. Do bloggers make much money from ads? How would I go about selling ads on my site?

... There certainly are some examples of blogs as successful businesses. High-profile blogs like Huffington Post and Daily Kos attract millions of readers and sell oodles of ads.

Some lesser-known blogs do well also: Steve Pavlina has a blog and Web site about personal growth called StevePavlina.com that generates more than $10,000 in ad revenue each month. And Tom Foremski publishes a blog called Silicon Valley Watcher that garners about $10,000 a month in corporate sponsorships.

But those are the exceptions. There are 103 million blogs in existence and 175,000 new ones created every day, according to Technorati, a San Francisco company that tracks blogs and offers a blog search engine.

Most of those 103 million blogs don't even try to sell ads. And those that do accept ads - most commonly through Google's AdSense program - typically make only a few dollars a month.

"A good rule of thumb would be that for every 1,000 page views, the blogger will make 50 cents," said Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of the popular blog Truemors.

"Someone starting a new blog shouldn't expect a dime from advertising," said Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas. ...

Let's look at the various ways to sell ads on a blog:

Google's AdSense. You can find these little text ads with the "Ads by Google" caption on lots of Web pages. Advertisers bid for these slots on a per-click basis, and Google splits the revenue with the blogger or Web page owner. Since it's an auction system, the cost of ads varies widely - from a few pennies per click up to $15 per click or more.

Google doesn't disclose how it splits the revenue with Web page owners. But Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher estimated that small Web publishers probably receive about 60 percent of ad revenues while Google keeps 40 percent.

Blog ad networks. Some companies have created networks of independent blogs and sell packages of advertising on those blogs - for instance, a package of ads on parenting-related blogs.

Federated Media and Pajamas Media are two such companies; BlogHer is another one that focuses on blogs written by or for women. These networks typically charge on a per-view rather than a per-click basis, which may be more lucrative for many bloggers. ...

Sell ads yourself. Some megablogs like Huffington Post have in-house advertising sales teams. There are also sites like BlogAds.com that help you sell ads yourself. But do-it-yourself ad sales is not a great idea for a new, unknown, part-time blogger like you. ...

Pavlina - whose total Web-related revenue from all sources come to $40,000 per month - has a helpful article about making money from blogging. For more advanced tips, go to  www.problogger.com or www.doshdosh.com, which deal with how to make money from blogging and the Web.

September 13, 2007 at 11:17 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bloggers win before the FEC

DailyKos: Bloggers win before the Federal Elections Commission. Excerpt:

The FEC has unanimously determined that DailyKos qualifies as a media entity under federal law, and thus none of the site's expenditures count under federal law for determining whether a political committee was formed.  Just like a newspaper isn't charged with making a campaign contribution by editorializing on behalf of a candidate, neither is this site.

An important, and obvious, victory for opinion bloggers (though the bizarro world of Washington, DC, frequently misses the plain and obvious).

September 4, 2007 at 10:57 PM in Citizen media, Politics, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recent comments are back

I've restored the Recent comments block to the right navigation over there. Still getting a lot of spam, but I want to encourage folks to post comments and this is a way to pull them out and highlight them. All posted comments are reviewed a few times a day.

September 3, 2007 at 11:35 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

17-year-old girl who built a million-dollar website

Via Doshdosh: Case study of a teenage millionaire: Ashley Qualls and WhateverLife.com.

A 17-year-old high school dropout. Made more than $1 million. Earns as much as $70K a month. Owns a website that attracts more than 7 million monthly visitors and 60 million page views.

Her first Adsense paycheck was $2,790 and she has already rejected a $1.5 million buyout offer. I’m referring to Ashley Qualls, the founder of Whateverlife.com, a free MySpace layouts website.

Fastcompany recently published a fascinating feature article on Ashley, a teenage entrepreneur from Detroit who has made a substantial amount of money online by targeting a niche market (girls on Myspace/social networks) and fulfilling their needs.

Ashley is evidence of the meritocracy on the Internet that allows even companies run by neophyte entrepreneurs to compete, regardless of funding, location, size, or experience–and she’s a reminder that ingenuity is ageless.

She has taken in more than $1 million, thanks to a now-familiar Web-friendly business model. Her MySpace page layouts are available for the bargain price of…nothing. They’re free for the taking. Her only significant source of revenue so far is advertising.

Like other high traffic websites, Whateverlife.com runs CPM ads by Casale Media and Value Click, alongside Google Adsense and Nabbr, a revenue sharing video widget. The integration for each ad type is relatively well done and not too intrusive. The main problem is that Ashley doesn’t seem to be selling ads directly, which is a huge loss considering the amount of traffic she gets.

Currently, a site like Techcrunch makes $10K per 125 x 125 ad block and that’s with 4.0 million page views per month. Whateverlife gets 15 times more page views ...

According to the article, Whateverlife.com has a larger audience than the combined circulation of magazines like Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl!. This is something remarkable.

Doshdosh has a few suggestions for Ashley to monetize her amazing traffic numbers.

Here's FastCompany's multimedia slide show on Ashley. And here's Ashley's response.

September 2, 2007 at 01:02 AM in Business use, Web/Tech, Weblogs, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (4)

Trackbacks, RIP

I haven't received a legitimate trackback in over a month, though I have gotten dozens of spam trackbacks. So I'm turning off trackbacks on this blog now. (This is probably obvious to everyone by now.) I remember Dave Sifry predicting two years ago that spam would kill trackbacks. He was right.

August 24, 2007 at 10:44 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Six steps to dealing with blog criticism

New Communications Forum: Dealing with Detractors: Responding to Negative Word of Mouth.

August 23, 2007 at 10:27 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0

A new report titled, The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0 (98 pages,
PDF), by Dr. David C. Wyld, Maurin Professor of Management and Director of the Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative, Department of Management at Southern Louisiana University, examines the phenomenon of blogging in the context of the public sector.

August 23, 2007 at 10:25 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Orange County blogger bolsters GOP budget holdouts

The San Jose Mercury News has a front-page look at Orange County blogger Jon Fleischman's 2-year-old website Flash Report, which is bolstering the 14 California Republican senators who are refusing to compromise on the state budget.

August 18, 2007 at 12:38 PM in Politics, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Doc's new blog

Looks like Doc Searls, who's in the process of moving to Boston as a visiting prof at Harvard, has a new blog over there. He's reconnecting with his Eastern roots, is trying to follow the Zaca fire (near Santa Barbara) online, and has this today: Life beyond advertising, pointing to Terry Heaton's latest.

August 9, 2007 at 09:56 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

How to make your blog appeal to traditional media and big advertisers

Dosh Dosh: How to make your blog appeal to traditional media and big advertisers. Excerpt:

News broke today that Discovery Communications purchased TreeHugger.com, a environment and sustainable development blog, for $10 million. ...

Treehugger’s purchase exemplifies traditional media’s growing interest in blogs. Large advertisers as well, have money to spare and they are looking for blogs which offer the best platform for their brand.

If you own a well established blog within a particular niche, you have a potential money maker. One way to improve your blog income is to focus on attracting both big advertisers and traditional media.

Here are some tips on how to do so:

• Actively contact advertisers to look for ad buyers. Passively relying on advertisers to contact you limits your ad selling potential. At the very least, create an advertising page for your website.
• Think of your blog as a business. Monitor your traffic and webpages with conversion ratios in mind. Set up auxiliary streams of income (Job board, online stores) to improve your site’s perceived income value.
• Consider syndicating your content through alternative means (podcasts, newsletters etc.). Contact online and traditional magazines and offer some of your articles for free in return for credit.
• Build a community around your site by actively engaging in dialog with other similar blogs in your niche. Create forums, social voting sites or allow users to generate content for your site as well.
• Develop social proof indicators such as the Alexa Rank, Technorati Rank or RSS Feed subscribership. While these indicators of social proof can be flawed, they are widely accepted and acknowledged by traditional media and some parts of the general public.
• Establish Authority by focusing on a specific topic in great depth. Spread your opinions by contributing articles to online magazines, blogs and newsletters. Get interviewed if possible.
• Hire writers/guest bloggers so you can focus on strategic planning for your blog. Multiple writers will also help establish your blog as an online publication or community blog.

August 5, 2007 at 07:20 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Ban span from TypePad!!!

Here's a plea to TypePad: The <span> code automatically inserted into the "Compose Post option on TypePad has been driving me crazy for years. Here's the latest example of a snippet of an article I copied from an article into the Compose Post window in my blog (only the text was copied -- the code below is what shows up if you click on the Edit HTML tab):

&nbsp; &nbsp;The trade group wants <span id="mn_Global"><span id="mn_Article">hat reflected in the warnings. ...</span></span></p></span></span><span id="mn_Global"><span id="mn_Article">I spoke before the CCIA last year. Good group.</span></span><span id="mn_Global"></span></p></blockquote><p><span id="mn_Global"></span></p>

Absurd. Banning <span> -- and &nbsp; -- from TypePad's auto-compose feature would serve its members much better.

August 2, 2007 at 07:31 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Some bloggers blur some lines

From the New York Times a couple of days ago: Some Bloggers Blur Some Lines.

If the reaction is anything to go by, the decision by the blog-advertising network Federated Media to deploy its writers to produce marketing copy for Microsoft and Cisco Systems may have set back by  a notch or two the efforts of professional bloggers to gain credibility.

Federated handles ads for several of the most popular blogs that cover technology and business: TechCrunch, GigaOM, Boing Boing, VentureBeat and several others. Late last week, Nick Denton of the Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag noticed that several of Federated’s bloggers had contributed to a marketing site created for Microsoft.

The site, People Ready (peoplereadybusiness.federatedmedia.net), had eight Federated writers answer the question, “When did you know your business was people ready?”

“People Ready” is a slogan of Microsoft, which advertises on Federated’s sites. The bloggers were not directly paid for taking part, but in return, Microsoft bought ads on their blogs.

Mr. Denton wrote that it was disappointing that reputable Federated writers had “signed on as spokespeople.” And he noted that “the stodgy old-media industry has a rule that newspaper reporters, and TV news hosts, shouldn’t trade on their public trust to endorse products.”

John Battelle, the founder and chief executive of Federated, wrote on the company’s blog that the campaign was an example of “conversational marketing.” He defined it in this case as a “three-way conversation” among bloggers, readers and marketers (federatedmedia.net).

“Marketing can and should be useful, relevant, helpful, and add value to the conversation of a site,” he wrote. Insisting that marketers be kept out of such conversations is an example of “the worst baggage of traditional approaches to media,” he wrote.

Several of Federated’s bloggers apologized and promised not to be involved in such a campaign again. Others defended their actions, including Michael Arrington, editor of TechCrunch, who has repeatedly lambasted “pay per post” bloggers who take money to mention advertisers. On his personal blog, CrunchNotes (crunchnotes.com), Mr. Arrington wrote that copy in the ads “isn’t a direct endorsement,” but merely “an answer to some lame slogan created by the advertiser.”

Other bloggers, as well as those leaving comments on Valleywag and on Federated’s sites, said they were not looking for supposedly independent bloggers to team up with marketers to sell them stuff — they are looking for bloggers who will tell readers what they really think. ...

July 3, 2007 at 10:14 PM in Ethics, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Tech blogs go from hobbies to businesses

USA Today has an article, “Tech blogs go from hobbies to businesses,” about how Om Malik and Mike Arrington were able to turn their blogging side projects into full-time businesses. Oh, and they used Laughing Squid's photo.

June 20, 2007 at 11:13 PM in Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Jarvis: 3 ethics the news media can learn from bloggers

Blogger-Prof Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine is on tonight's NewsHour on PBS, interviewed as part of a discussion about the mix of facts of opinion in the media today, and whether that's a good thing or not.

Jeff offers up "three ethics" that the news media can learn from bloggers:

(1) The ethic of corrections: Be honest about your mistakes and correct errors quickly.
(2) The ethic of the link: Don't take my word for it, here's my source material, here's where people are disagreeing with me.
(3) The ethic of transparency: Be transparent about your motives and biases.

Sound advice, and precepts that you can find at resources like the Center for Citizen Media's Principles of citizen journalism project.

I wouldn't have been a good participant on tonight's segment because I actually agree with both the speakers, Jarvis on the myth of objectivity and the needs for the news media to embrace the ethos of openness found in the blogosphere, and Callie Crossley, contributor to "Beat the Press" at Boston's WGBH, who held out for news organizations making it clear what are the facts and what are your opinions, a distinction still worth making, in my view.

June 18, 2007 at 04:07 PM in Media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (1)

Blogging 'violates' sports broadcast rights

Steve Safran at Audience Research & Development today:

I've ranted before about how the professional sports franchises are being stupid and greedy when it comes to online coverage by the local media. But it appears stupid and greedy is going to college, too.

Brian Bennett, sports writer for The Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, discovered a new interpretation of broadcast rights last Friday as he tried to report on an NCAA baseball game between the University of Louisville and Oklahoma State. Bennett was covering the game for his paper, and he was liveblogging the game as well. You can read that here.

However, the NCAA decided that Bennett's liveblogging constituted a violation of exclusivity for broadcasting and Internet rights, granted only to official rights holders. Bennett received a memo outlining this interpretation before the game. His editors told him to blog anyway. He posted an item once every 5-10 minutes. Bennett was not posting a strike-by-strike simulation. He was writing occasional notes such as "Cards settle for just the one run, but maybe more importantly, they are showing an aggressiveness and passion that was lacking at times yesterday."

NCAA officials found him in the fifth inning and kicked him out. His last entry: "I have been ejected from U of L's Super Regional game against Oklahoma State by the NCAA for blogging live during the event. I won't be providing any more live updates."

The NCAA is out of its mind.

Even if this case goes against the strict letter of the "description or accounts of the game" clause, it's still shortsighted. The NCAA's decision in this game sets a terrible precedent. Should it decide to enforce this silly decision and should that decision stand the ramifications for all sports, college and professional are profound.

This would mean that everyone on Earth would have to stop blogging about sports events while games are in progress. This interpretation means that if you write on your blog "Holy cow! My team's back in the game" while the game's still on, you're in violation of broadcast rights. Ridiculous. One would presume this would extend to BBS posts as well. Yet there is no way anyone could look a blog and think "Wow - that must be stealing a massive share of the television and internet audience."

Blogs, conversation boards and chat rooms are the places people talk about the game. They don't steal audience share. They add to it.

As the Courier-Journal's attorney points out: "Once a player hits a home run, that’s a fact. It’s on TV, everybody sees it. They (the NCAA) can’t copyright that fact. The blog wasn’t a simulcast or a recreation of the game. It was an analysis."

Couldn't agree more. This has been a train wreck screaming down the tracks for some time now. The NCAA is about to barrel into the reality of Americans' media viewing habits.

June 13, 2007 at 11:33 PM in Sports, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

When bloggers won't talk to a reporter

Steven Levy in the June 11 issue of Newsweek: When bloggers say no to a simple chat (on the phone with a reporter). How bloggers are changing modern journalism. Writes Levy (a colleague and friend):

When Wired magazine writer Fred Vogelstein set out to write a story about a Silicon Valley blogger, Mike Arrington, he figured he would do what virtually every professional journalist does—interview key people, either face to face or by telephone. It's the acid-tested methodology of reporters everywhere. But in this case, simply by making the request that newspaper and magazine scribes make thousands of times a day, Vogelstein found himself in the middle of a controversy that's challenging the utility, the accuracy and the very morality of the real-time interview.

Here is what happened to Vogelstein when he sought his interviews. First, blog entrepreneur Jason Calacanis told him he would not speak to him, but answer questions only by e-mail, something Vogelstein wouldn't agree to. Then, blogging pioneer Dave Winer told him he would not be interviewed by phone. He suggested that Vogelstein e-mail questions that he would then answer publicly on his blog, a solution for which Vogelstein had even less enthusiasm.

These rejections should have been no big whoop—journalists get turned down all the time. But in this case, both Calacanis and Winer trumpeted their turndowns on their well-read blogs. Apparently they hit a nerve, because the issue redounded all over the blogosphere. The main subject of the story, Arrington, lamented on his blog that the Wired story was blown and would probably be killed. Soon no less than The Washington Post (the parent company of NEWSWEEK) was using the case to examine the dynamics of the journalistic interview in the user-generated 21st century.

What are the bloggers complaining about? As Calacanis wrote to Vogelstein, "I don't want someone taking half a sentence or paraphrasing me ... Just too much risk." Neither Winer nor Calacanis is unaware of the value of a live conversation. But in their experience, that spontaneity is frequently abused to collect "gotcha" quotes that don't really reflect the subject's views.

Such complaints aren't new. The twist is that the Internet has altered the relationship. Blogger and NYU professor Jay Rosen says interviews have been an exercise in unequal power between the writer and the submissive subject. But with blogs the subject has a direct channel to the public. "The interviewer used to be in charge, but that's no longer the case," says media blogger Jeff Jarvis. "I can decide how long the quote is, I can make sure the context is accurate."

All this can be unnerving to someone (like, um, me) who has spent a career conversing with people on the other end of the phone line or lunch table. A live interview allows me not only to follow up quickly but to sense the verbal cues that direct me to more fruitful topics. In e-mail, people talk at you; in conversation I can talk with subjects, and a casual remark can lead to a level of discussion that neither party anticipated from the beginning. I am more likely to learn from someone in a conversation than in an e-mail exchange, which simply does not allow for the serendipity, intensity and give-and-take of real-time interaction.

We in the journalism tribe operate under the belief that when we ask people to talk to us we are not acting out of self-interest but a sense of duty to inform the population. It's an article of our faith that when subjects speak to us, they are engaging in a grand participatory act where everyone benefits. But these lofty views don't impress bloggers like Rosen. "You have to prove [you represent the public]," he says. Yes, we do. But every time we lose the priceless knowledge from those essential, real-time interviews, our stories are impoverished, to the detriment of our readers: you.

Levy's point is well taken. But I think he's fastened onto an exception rather than a trend. Few bloggers are willing to be quoted publicly about Michael Arrington because of the clout he now wields in technology circles. Dave Winer's aversion to journalists is legendary, and probably deserved, considering how few journalists understand the details of the technology plays that Dave is involved in.

But here's a suggestion to Jason Calacanis and anyone else who's genuinely worried about his or her quotes being taken out of context:

Record your interview. Don't publish it before the reporter's article is published, because that's a bullshit approach. But if you think your comments were taken out of context, publish the audio file on Ourmedia and embed an audio player on your blog so everyone can hear the full conversation.

Very few journalists will object to this if you make this a precondition for the interview. A win for the reporter, who gets to do her job. Protection for the source. And the public doesn't get short-changed.

June 12, 2007 at 02:00 PM in Media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (2) | | (1)

AP seeks to track story use on Net

San Jose Mercury News: AP seeks to track story use on Net. Excerpt:

The Associated Press, the world's oldest news agency, signed a deal Thursday with a Redwood City start-up to track how news stories get spread around the Internet.

Founded last year by a former Yahoo executive and Xerox PARC research scientist, Attributor can distill a news story, photograph, graphic, radio report or video into a digital fingerprint and find copies of the story on the billions of Web pages.

"Attributor aims to bring transparency and accountability to the online content economy," said Jim Brock, chief executive and co-founder of Attributor. ...

<    Srinandan Kasi, AP's general counsel, said ... it is not unusual for people to take AP's content without realizing they need a license.

In addition to identifying AP's news content all over the Web, Attributor will help AP automate its response to unlicensed content. AP will have options ranging from requesting removal of the content to enabling a user of the content to quickly obtain a license.

"Content companies clearly have an interest in how their content is being used on the Internet," said Andrew Frank, an analyst with Gartner. In addition to identifying stolen content, Attributor can spot news that falls into a gray area of "fair use," Frank said.

What this suggests to me is that bloggers will soon no longer be allowed to use extended excerpts of news articles — like this one. Instead, news organizations will allow only short excerpts and a linkback to the full article — which almost always goes behind a paid firewall after a week or two.

June 1, 2007 at 03:46 PM in Citizen media, Media, New media, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (2) | |