http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Sun, 14 Mar 2004 12:03:58 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/14/012116.php#comment-50898 Thanks RJ, I really appreciate the concern and the thought going into your efforts. Re Amazon: if you go into Amazon via Blogcritics (by clicking on a product link) we do get a small cut if you buy another Amazon product other than the one we have linked to, but it's a smaller amount than the direct link. The thing about Amazon is that we have actually done a pretty good job converting the links - especially for reviews - into sales. The problem is that we are mostly selling "low ticket" items like books, CDs and DVDs, and with the referral rate average of 5%, you can see it takes a ton of sales in the $10-20 range to add up to much. As traffic continues to rise eventaully this will add up to a significant amount, but that is still a ways off. What would make a HUGE difference is if people started buying "big ticket" items like computers, phones, audio equipment, iPods, and such things that we do feature pretty often, but people just aren't in the habit yet of making these kinds of purchases from Amazon through us. This would make a tremendous difference right away if we started to get some of those kinds of purchases. Regarding the marketing fund: it's an excellent idea and one I have thought about for a while. What I haven't decided yet, and would appreciate thoughts and input on, is would the money - say $1000 - be better spent buying actual ads or hiring a PR company that specializes in the Internet (I'm not aware of any that specialize in blogs yet, that might be a very good business for someone!) to spread the word for us. Thanks for bringing all this up RJ, it has broken the ice on very important matters I haven't felt quite right about bringing up. 50898@blogcritics.org Sun, 14 Mar 2004 12:03:58 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/14/012116.php#comment-50894 Excellent question; I buy all my toys, books, and CDs from amazon, so this would be good to know. I've pondered reviewing an item so I can go buy it and benefit BC. But then again, I need to own it before I can review it. But you figured that out before I did, didn't ya, smarty pants? 50894@blogcritics.org Sun, 14 Mar 2004 11:42:27 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/14/012116.php#comment-50889 I could buy my textbooks for next semester this way too, if it works. 50889@blogcritics.org Sun, 14 Mar 2004 11:04:29 EST