I came across links to two similar posts on Twitter today--both about successful newspaper replacements: websites that rely heavily on user-generated content.
The first was about AnnArbor.com--Michigan's new online daily. It replaces the Ann Arbor News. The website features a staff of 60 (down from 316 when it was a print publication), of which 35 are journalists (called content-creators). It also has "around 80" bloggers - most of whom are unpaid.
The second was about the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which folded in March, but kept the website up...a website "heavily reliant on more than 200 unpaid bloggers." According to this article, both audience and revenue for/from the new site are ahead of projection.
On one hand, it's great to see bloggers figuring so prominently in the future of news...but on the other I wonder how long until the bloggers providing free content for these types of sites realize they want some kind of compensation.
If you're experiencing deja vu right now, thinking you've read this post before, you're not crazy--I've blogged about this same thing before. These two articles seem to indicate that the model newspapers are moving towards--more online content; specifically user-generated content--is proving successful.
It also makes me wonder what would happen if these unpaid content generators decided to do their own version of the PR blackout. In case you're not familiar with the PR blackout, mom bloggers are being challenged to eschew all PR stuff--giveaways, paid posts, etc--for a week in an attemp to get back to what blogging is really about: writing about what you want to, on your own terms. (Well, according to MomDot, that is; Resourceful Mommy has a different view.)
Right now mommy bloggers are all the rage, but if it turns out that local bloggers are the thing that turns around the failing newspaper industry, are we going to be reading about local or news blogger blackouts in a few years? Are those bloggers gong to realize, as mommy bloggers have, what a valuable commodity they are and are they going to start wanting to be compensated? Is it reasonable to expect that bloggers will always be willing to provide a never-ending stream of monetizable content for free?
Showing posts with label mommy bloggers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mommy bloggers. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Mommy Blogger Drama
I posted this in my other blog (the one where I can use the "F" word and talk about stuff other than social media) but figured I may as well save myself some time this holiday weekend and make it do double-duty over here. Fear not: no use of the "F" word in this particular post.
I don't know why but recently I've become fixated on the whole mommy blogger thing. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say mommy bloggers, I'm talking about Power Moms who companies are falling all over themselves trying to woo into hawking their products and services. I'm talking about women like Jessica Gottlieb, who get invited to the American Idol finale and party, and Jessica Smith, who is a Ford Flex spokesmom and gets to do stuff like be flown to Santa Barbara to stay at the Four Seasons hotel, work out with Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer and receive makeovers as part of a 30-day challenge on an upcoming fitness video program for the Nintendo Wii. This is how these ladies roll.
How lucky are they? Or...are they?
First of all, there seems to be a lot of heat on the collective mommy bloggers lately--the FTC is in the process of revising their guidelines relating to bloggers, based, it seems, largely on the tons of moms out there who are endorsing products on their blogs. I've already written about this stuff in my other blog so I won't rehash it here, except to say that, as you can see from those three posts, I'm not really feeling the whole blogging for money thing. Or I didn't think I was.
I honestly don't know, though--I mean, it depends how much money we're talking I guess. If I were able to make a reliable income blogging and do it full time, would I? Especially if my kids were little and it meant I could be home with them? If it meant I got stuff like free trips to Disney for the whole family and other free stuff and cool perks, would I feel differently? I'm kind of thinking yes.
What I do know is this: where there are women, there is drama. Rivalry. Cattyness. How could there not be? We're talking about not only women, but moms--the most judgemental population imaginable. Now in addition to criticizing each others' choices about parenting, breastfeeding and working outside the home, they can criticize each others' blogging styles and methods.
Honestly, it's better than TV.
I don't know why but recently I've become fixated on the whole mommy blogger thing. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say mommy bloggers, I'm talking about Power Moms who companies are falling all over themselves trying to woo into hawking their products and services. I'm talking about women like Jessica Gottlieb, who get invited to the American Idol finale and party, and Jessica Smith, who is a Ford Flex spokesmom and gets to do stuff like be flown to Santa Barbara to stay at the Four Seasons hotel, work out with Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer and receive makeovers as part of a 30-day challenge on an upcoming fitness video program for the Nintendo Wii. This is how these ladies roll.
How lucky are they? Or...are they?
First of all, there seems to be a lot of heat on the collective mommy bloggers lately--the FTC is in the process of revising their guidelines relating to bloggers, based, it seems, largely on the tons of moms out there who are endorsing products on their blogs. I've already written about this stuff in my other blog so I won't rehash it here, except to say that, as you can see from those three posts, I'm not really feeling the whole blogging for money thing. Or I didn't think I was.
I honestly don't know, though--I mean, it depends how much money we're talking I guess. If I were able to make a reliable income blogging and do it full time, would I? Especially if my kids were little and it meant I could be home with them? If it meant I got stuff like free trips to Disney for the whole family and other free stuff and cool perks, would I feel differently? I'm kind of thinking yes.
What I do know is this: where there are women, there is drama. Rivalry. Cattyness. How could there not be? We're talking about not only women, but moms--the most judgemental population imaginable. Now in addition to criticizing each others' choices about parenting, breastfeeding and working outside the home, they can criticize each others' blogging styles and methods.
Honestly, it's better than TV.
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