On ad-free weblogs
The author of the weblog Utopian Hell, which I started reading sometime around the time I got annotations to the point where I could actually leave it unattended at the end of the month (and come back the next day) has been a fairly reliable writer on the subject of why ads are not a good plan for a weblog. Intellectually I've always liked that argument, but have never really been warm enough to it to make the sort of statement that she's made on her weblog, because I mainly read political weblogs and it's somewhat obvious when a writer has gotten coopted, because their writing changes fairly quickly thereafter, and my reaction to that is to just drop the weblog and go elsewhere for my daily dose of political frustration.
However, thanks to the people at blogads, that may have changed. They went out and found a handful -- 25 people to be precise -- of lefty/social North American weblog authors and did a gapingvoid on them by giving them a fully-paid week-long junket in Amsterdam. Needless to say, this has started to attract some attention (and, yes, that second link is to an Evil Party website), not all of it favorable. It's certainly not at the Abramoff/Delay/Norquist level of pay-for-legislation, and it is, at least superficially, the logical next step of the weblog -> advertising on weblogs progression that has happened everywhere (and would probably happen to me if TSFR got popular enough to overflow the pipe it's on right now.) But there's something that bothers me about it, and it took a while to figure out.
When gapingvoid did their wine marketing campaign, they gave away cases of wine to a bunch of weblogs, no strings attached, under the clever assumption that when given a gift horse, people will enthusiastically talk about the gift. And it worked, to the tune of doubling the winery's sales. But I don't read about wine or spirits online, so it seemed like nothing more than a very clever advertising trick.
So why does the Amsterdam junket seem different?
I was talking with the best about it this morning, and she pointed out that all of the weblogs that involved with this junket were run by young and socially active people, so that when they just spontaneously started talking about their wonderful trip to Amsterdam it would just naturally make Amsterdam more attractive to the young and socially active readership (determined, naturally, by online polling) of their weblogs. And then I started to think "if they can be bought by a junket here, what's to say that anything else they write isn't also because of a party political contribution on behalf of the Silly party?. The best pointed out that one of the fun things about reading the social weblogs is that the authors are just real people talking about their lives, and that it's not the same when you read an article by someone who is doing it as their job.
And that by tying this sort of "giveaway" into blogads, they're also doing a sort of "you can be like the kool kids!" marketing to get blogads onto more weblogs, the vast majority of which won't ever ever be the kool kids.
It's not very appealing to read a weblog and wonder if you're reading an article or a paid editorial ad. At least the people who sold out to the Amsterdam junket are being forced to wear the blogads banner of shame for a year month, so I will not forget that I'm reading a author who can be bought.
But, for me, it made some things easier; I hadn't used the ad-free weblog banner because it felt like self-promotion, but now it seems like a promise that my commentary is coming from me and not my attempts to make a million on the information superhighway. So there it is, and there it will stay. If someone makes me the weblog offer I cannot refuse (wads of money or a junket, as long as I put the banner up on the weblog for a period of time), I'll just shut TSFR down and then they can have their banner, I'll have their money, and people won't have to worry about me being the conduit for some nasty marketing organization.
Update 30-Jan-2006: corrected and linked to the Monty Python reference.
(h/t to Suburban Guerilla for the news about the junket.)
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Egads! Now I have “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” and “Four feet good. Two feet better.” firing in my synapses. A “junket” for bloggers in exchange for ad space???
Now, I know my blog is not expected to reach the Top 100,000 anytime soon, but these high-profile people should have had a few red flags pop up on this issue – and, yes, especially taking into consideration Lefty critics of Armstrong Williams, Tom DeLay, and Jack Abramoff’s pay-for-play actions. Two words, people: slippery slope.
I have always been ad-adverse in my life, but you can bet that I will also go the extra step to make it clear that Yowling is not for sale. It’s my little virtual soapbox and I intend to keep it.
Okay. I’ve rambled and ranted enough. My little ad-free owl (should have been a dust mite) is going up as soon as possible.