I started reading all my favorite blogs and discovered that the trend to write posts about a a product and get paid for it has hit a few of them. It sucks in many ways. It is not that I really care if someone chooses to get paid for writing as long as they disclose that they are doing so. What sucks is now anytime anyone blogs about any product or service in the back of my mind is – yeah sure – how much did you get for that one? What sucks is do others do the same if I happen to mention the brand of my car, boat, or camera?
I realize that my blog is never going to be a “high rated” one and I really do not care. That is not what I intended. In the few months that I have been blogging the trend has moved farther and farther from the original grass roots type feel to an opportunistic bullitin board for commercialized BS.
I quit blogging about politics and have moved to an informal sloppy method, this is my life stuff. What I have discovered during my short blogging history is this:
- To get more hits use youtube links.
- To get responses – respond to others.
- Posts about specific situations, such as my posts on Annie’s limp tail, my Cairo model, and my pontoon boat have received the most hits (other than a deleted youtube post).
- If you spend a lot of time researching a political subject your work will show up on someone else’s blog without credit back.
- The more hits my blog gets the more spam I get
- The higher overall level of language used is directly correlated with an decline in time a reader spends reading a post.
There are some blogs that I read on a regular bases that are now trying the pay per post thing. Some have been doing so for awhile with mixed results. There is only one blog listed in my sidebar that is experimenting with this and one that has been removed because the quality went down, down, down once they started vying for traffic and posting for dollars.
I like your list — I think it’s interesting to read what your experience has been.
I’m actually mixed about PPP still — most of the stuff that can be blogged about isn’t stuff I’ll do. If it isn’t relevant already and has parameters that go beyond dropping a link, forget it. I’ll also disclose it either by tag or by mention, but I start with the foundation that I’m only going to write on stuff that I’d write on anyway.
But all the A-listers inhabited my ambivalence with such disdain today that I decided to push back, so I come off as being this rabid champion of PPP when I’m still playing with it. Oh well, it’s all an experiment which may succeed or not. We’ll see. 🙂
Welcome back. How was the trip?
LOL – play with it – get your lens! As long as it is made clear that pay per post is used.
I will put my foot in it with this:
A-listers remind me (sometimes) of cheerleaders in highschool where I was a lowly nerd.
Yes, they do. It’s almost like they’re in a mindset where it’s “the middle finger” to all of you who looked down your nose at the geeks back then. Only I was a nerd in HS too and a band geek to boot. Back then band geeks were among the untouchables..that’s changed a lot since then. So when I see an outcry that almost seems to be a protest that they’re on a higher plane, it makes me want to push ’em. Hard. 🙂
Hee hee,
I did choir.