But let me continue before you start judging and deciding on your comments now… please read on…
But what of other media outlets that I may admire, even truly love for their mission and what they do, but know in the back of my mind that somewhere, someone is making a profit. For instance, MSN spaces and Reviews does not provide you with a place to blog out of the goodness of their heart. IT seems that the minute you sign up for a space, your information is used - read: they can sell that information and kids, list brokering is a very big business as you likely know because who you are, which demographic you fall in is a very sellable commodity to many corporations who wish to pitch their goods to you.
To test the software, I set up a space on MSN Spaces, and of course, you all know undoubtedly that there are a number of problems with this so-called “blogging” software. For one, it is not what I would call standard blogging software by any means. It seems more like an advertising site and and a point of purchase location on the Web that uses your content to sell than anything else, but more, a week or so ago, or maybe it is coincidence (?) I received forty-one messages from a service called Match.com that I see advertisements and markers located all over MSN spaces and remembered that MSN spaces had even asked if I was Single or Married or Taken.
I selected Married, of course, but would have selected, “Absolutely No Way In Hell” if there had been that option, yet regardless, I received 14 messages from someone named “Rock Star” who “liked my pictures” (I tested the uploading function with a few vague shots) and thought I looked like “a really nice person.” Another guy asked I would be interested in “getting to know him” this time, through a mutual exchange of photographs and instant messages.
Both, it would appear, had come through Match.com (why I would be on Match.com is beyond me and maybe I’m not, but the messages came through there and when I signed into Messenger a little pop-up window would appear saying “Rock Star wants to meet you” seem to be coming from them and another company called “Lava Life” (I don’t know them, but the name would indicate some match making type of deal again… am I wrong?) A “meeting service” shall we say? Is this what blogging has come to? A seedy and smoky and hokey and ticky-tacky singles Web site where you put up your “interests” and your “hobbies” and your “musings” and your “favorite songs” and “faves” and “links” to all of your little friends so that we get some “sense of who you fucking are” because shit, if you know this about me, then by golly, you must really really know who I am. What nonsense.
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
I addressed this, partly and not quite so extensively several months back.
Basically there are a lot more consumers than creators.
There are even fewer .....
Well, I was going to say there are even fewer quality creators but I guess the market would ultimately judge that. Sort of. Kind of.
There's a lot of people who think they have something interesting to say, and fewer who do.
Still, in the meantime, the good is drowned by the junk. Still further in the meantime, the need for paid content is logarithmically diminished. And the freelance compensation goes down.
There are reasons - often to do with livelihood - why the idea of prestige is one best kept around. The quality of work demanded in print is also a factor.
[typos fixed - to terrible even for me to swallow]
2 - Eric Olsen
HI Sadi, very nice, persuasive post and I appreciate the special dispensation and spectacularly kind words for us!!
Yes, this is certainly an issue of concern and even alarm for real writers.
I was just talking to Natalie Davis about this yesterday, who is an excellent, experienced writer and editor who is having a very difficult time making a living in the new writers' economy, largely created by the Internet.
Temple is correct about the devaluation and it's hard to say exactly how the problem will be rectified beyond the boring, underpaying advertising-and-affiliate model. Something is missing - there is some way to make all of this work that no one has come up with yet.
3 - sadi
i think this will ultimately pay out by allowing writers several things instead of instant compensation:
1. write good stuff and think toward compiling those articles for a book project or an antholgy that is taking submissions.
2. use these writings as tear sheets when applying for new jobs or a promotion etc, as this kind of exposure and number of web hits lends you a legitimacy and authority that you may not otherwise have.
3. develop an expertise, as i sort of fell into, and b ecome THE authority on that subject on the Web and then start to try to get radio bookings or make it clear to television programs, new media and paying outlets that you are available to write about this issue for them,
&
4. if you do become an expert and a primary reference (your site, for example, gets thousands of hits per day), then you have a legitmacy right there that will help you get a real literary agent.
so there is compensation at the end, i believe. you just have to think about how you are going to apply the work that you are doing now in the future.
and too, not all of this work IS for free. Some is paid, but for the work that is free, remember that in the final account, you can make it pay off...
just my opinion and thanks to RJ for a real interesting conversation about this topic as well... it helped me to think about my own views on the topic and get going on this piece as i said i would and ~ ta dah! ~ did.
Eric, of course ~~` not special dispensation, per se, just a logical statement to me that follows from what you do and our many discussions about that as well... speaking of...... ring me sometime...
cheers all, and thanks for reading my absurdly long works.
sade