Watching the Growing Pains of the Blogosphere

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I’m sorry this is a bit off topic, but as a still relatively young blogger, I wanted to chime in and thank the people who 5-7 years from now will have had a huge impact on how the ‘blogosphere works’. The most recent dust up is over Robert Scoble agreeing to speak at a conference hosted by PayPerPost. PayPerPost has a bad rep amongst the bigger bloggers because it pays bloggers to write about products or companies. It dilutes the credibility bloggers have and people seem to think it’s bad in the long run.

Robert is catching a lot of flack over his agreement (and he’s since had it modified a bit so that PayPerPost isn’t actually paying his salary). Mike Arrington took a different stance when PayPerPost offered to advertise and decided he didn’t want to be associated with them. All fair in my mind.

But as someone who hopes to watch and ride the wave of blogging growth in the next few years, it’s been good for me to watch these growing pains. I think that we need to figure out ways for smaller bloggers to monetize their content while keeping a separation between news and profit. Blogging is a powerful medium, and it’s allowed me to meet and talk with a wide audience, which I love. But in a few years, when the next generation of bloggers is coming of age, I have no doubt it will be a much more mature medium. And the squabbles that the A-listers go through now will have had a big impact on what blogging looks like tomorrow. Sometimes I wonder if the A-listers are actually a bunch of middle schoolers, but some of these issues *are* important. As a young blogger, it’s been fun to watch these people shape and mold blogging and I hope in a few years I can look back and see all the progress we’ve made.

[tags]Blogging, PayPerPost, Robert Scoble[/tags]

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  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    “The blogosphere” tends to go nuts over certain topics, and not others, even when the same principles apply.

    In this case, “PayPerPost” and “cash” are both hot-trigger items, and I suppose “Robert Scoble” is another blog-trigger item by now as well. ;-) Other types of influences, other instances of buyouts for persuasiveness, aren’t similarly pursued.

    “Would you blog about me for a thousand dollars?” is easy to write about, “Would you blog about me for this ski retreat?” is not. It’s a continuum.

    jd/adobe

  • http://chikkman.blogspot.com mikec

    I agree it’s going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. I’m personally not a fan of PayPerPost and would never use it.

    For the future, we are going to need other systems of monetization, publishing and communication tools. Also, IMO the whole system of ranking blogs due to “linking” is not a good predictor of quality. Just 2 cents from another beginner blogger.

    -Mike

  • http://www.onebyonemedia.com Jim Turner

    From a blog veteran, you have summed up nice the situation and just as you are new, us old timers also want to know how this will play out.

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Are you offering me a ski retreat JD? ;) (just kidding)

    Mike, I’m not really a fan of PayPerPost either, but as I mentioned, blogging has to provide a ROI for people and for some that ROI is going to be cash. I’d be interested to hear what you think about alternatives to Linking.

    Thanks Jim!

  • Pingback: Blog World Expo Blog » PayPerPost to host blogging conference PostiCon…. Controversy follows

  • David

    Friends of mine have blogs, and they earn (albeit a small amount) from Google Ads. I’ve heard of this working on a larger scale, as a source of income.

    I suppose if this works, your revenue will be directly related to your content. Right?

    Of course that’s easy for em to say – I don’t have a blog, and despite requests from friends/colleagues to start one, I won’t, until I feel I have something unique to add to the conversation!

    “PayPerPost” is an advertisement, as far as I’m concerned.

    IMHO, David

  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    “Are you offering me a ski retreat JD?”

    heh, no can do… I don’t know of anyone at Adobe who has those types of budgets. ;-)