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BURNINGBIRD
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a node at the edge
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May 13, 2002
 Tin Cup is out
At first I thought the Weblog Foundation was a joke, but additional reading showed me that, no, this guy's serious. And so are the people who've been responding to the suggestion. A Foundation that will do, among other things: Provide honorariums for deserving webloggers And so on... And the response to the idea has been favorable -- primarily from people who want to see themselves acknowledged as "professional" journalists because of their weblogging effort. Professional weblogging. Doesn't it just make you want to cry? Not all the response on the idea has been supportive as can be seen at MetaFilter, not surprising that. Though I hesitate to provide buzz to a weblogging book competitor (she says with a smile) Rebecca Blood's MeFi response is one of the best: at this moment there are too many *excellent* weblogs for me to have time to read them all, and all of them are paying a little bit for the privilege of maintaining their sites. so many professional writers seem to have the idea that good writers must be paid in order for writing to be worth their while--the web belies all that. *professional* writers need to be paid in order to be professional, but there are even some of them who are willing to do it on their weblogs for free. Over at AKMA's, Dorothea has been conducting an extensive makeover of the PreacherMan's weblog. She's not being paid for this effort. Instead, she's doing this as an act of kindness, for fun, and with a sense of adventure. Ultimately, Dorothea is acting as a member of a community, the same community that David Weinberger writes about: Relativism need not be what we learn from our encounters with others. Respect and open-mindedness are more likely given the fact that the Internet as a technology teaches us one value more deeply than any other: the joy of being connected ... which in some parlances is more accurately termed love. Now if you'll excuse me a moment, I have to go dust off my tin cup. Posted by Bb at May 13, 2002 07:15 PM Comments
Weblogs sell out! Film at 11. This guy's intentions ("Can I get dibs on that gig?") seem nothing but self-serving to me. "We need to demontrate their value to the Web, to media, to advertisers, and to society." Puhleez. If that's the direction some people want to go, then let 'em. Count me out. I think in general that the overgrowth of weblog wannabes has gone far enough already without dangling dollar bills in front of people's faces. I can't see anything that supports war bloggers to create more and more of the same propaganda being a good thing. Besides, if you like a site, you can give its owner financial support directly. Nice comments at MeFi. Matt sums it up: "All the things webloggers hate about traditional journalism are certain to happen to the future paid blogger. Writing entries to please your readers and advertisers, not yourself, posting entries because you have to, to get paid, lazy fact-checking to push things in under deadlines, conflicts of interest, and lack of disclosure of who is paying you and why are certain to give blogging a taint." GrahamVM's comments were also succinct: "If you read the article between the lines, it's not so much about a foundation as a freaking chamber of commerce for mediocre warbloggers who sorta think 'hmm, i'm ripping off all of andrew sullivan's attitude, ideas, links, how can i get paid for this?'. simple. you won't. as if people are going to start paying for uninformed opinions in the same era when they're "sharing" mp3s. if you're really, really good, and get noticed, you might get a regular column in a periodical or a book deal. if you're lucky. the rest of us will have to please ourselves. and besides, as jimbob pretty much said, weblogging hardly needs a self-styled foundation established by a bunch of myopics to promote it." Posted by: michael on May 14, 2002 10:54 AMsome of it's already happening. has anyone seen Mickey Kaus' KausFiles since it moved over to Slate? Ecch... Or Ken Layne's blog-like column on FoxNews.com? In both cases, the content's still the same, but, as expected, surrounded by ads (including popups, on Slate), and the rest of those sites' navigation/graphic schemes. and the layouts are so pedestrian (natch). Which makes them undreadable, to me. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad these guys will get paid to do/write what they love (mostly - i haven't seen evidence of an editor or publisher's hand yet), in a style they love...but egads. Posted by: ed on May 14, 2002 11:45 AMA foundation like this would take away the spontaneity. Ironically, then the best blogs who are awarded some money would just become part of the establishment themselves. There is also the danger that it may become an MLM like scheme - although the original proposer did not mean that of course. Lots of people would throw in some money and some would walk away with lots of money. Posted by: np on May 14, 2002 05:37 PMPost a comment
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