Next stop? AmwayBlog.

May 23, 2003 10:58 AM

MAKE MONEY (?) FAST by blogging.Someone who just doesn't get it tries to cash in on the blognomenon -- but who's actually gonna pay $3/month to read blogs? Oh, and you can get paid to blog...but given the blogs they point to as successful examples, I can't imagine that the're raking in the cash. Found via Google TextAd on MeFi. Really.
posted by Vidiot (22 comments total)

Love the design, too...look familiar?

And the fact that the "top blog" at this writing is currently saying that "it's time to leave Blogging Network."
posted by Vidiot at 11:03 AM on May 23, 2003

Blognomenon? Ugh.
posted by crunchburger at 11:06 AM on May 23, 2003

Themestream for bloggers. How long before this one crashes?
posted by gordian knot at 11:06 AM on May 23, 2003

Paying to read blogs is like tipping a drug-dealer.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:08 AM on May 23, 2003

Blognomenon? Ugh.

Sorry. I was attempting -- and failing -- to make fun of the tendency of some to put "blog" in front of anything. Tongue was in cheek there, even though it didn't come across as such.

Now if they'd just eliminate "blogosphere" from the lexicon...
posted by Vidiot at 11:10 AM on May 23, 2003

Take a look at the first textad on this page -- it's so meta!
posted by Vidiot at 11:11 AM on May 23, 2003

(errr, when I wrote that, Bloggingnetwork.com was top of the list. Now it isn't. Go figure.) And I'll shut up now.
posted by Vidiot at 11:13 AM on May 23, 2003

If you're looking for the truly egregious examples of "MAKE MONEY FAST!" weblog exploitation, you might be interested in:

Chat for a Living
GoldBlogger
Blogs to Riches
posted by anildash at 11:27 AM on May 23, 2003

So, with 18,957 posts and a total of $7,368.69 earned, that's almost $0.40 per post! I'll be able to pay off my art school loans in no time.
posted by eatitlive at 11:27 AM on May 23, 2003

i can imagine someone famous blogging like a supermodel or an actress and other crazy girls paying fee to read about her daily life
posted by bureaustyle at 11:49 AM on May 23, 2003

The company who runs this also created Bloghog, an online RSS tool. Very cool people who respond quickly to questions.

The Blogging Network has been a round for a while (in internet terms) so I really don't see what the negative hubbub is about. It's just another attempt to make money from blogging, without having to put ads up. Another attempt at microcontent payments?
posted by mkelley at 12:09 PM on May 23, 2003

Paying to read blogs is like tipping a drug-dealer.

Great one, you owe me a lunch, it's now all over my screen.
What about pay pal or wish lists on blogs; good or bad, in an etiquette sense? Feel like if the money was meant to be, the money will find me, not me chasing some dough. Wait... that could be my bread for lunch.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:22 PM on May 23, 2003

i will maybe pay to read a blog of naked photos of yourself.

but only if you're either hot or horribly ugly.

(i like extremes in opposition).
posted by fishfucker at 12:23 PM on May 23, 2003

Another attempt at microcontent payments?
I blog for free, sure I pay a price for it too: viewing & posting capabilities. Sell a blog to be sold as a money maker, hmmm. Whom are pushing this concept of getting rich. Them pushing or us dreaming or both whom together create a cycle of dreaming to: buy/sell/make/$$$$?[ really a dream until it happens, but dreams do come true in reality]
posted by thomcatspike at 12:39 PM on May 23, 2003

2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!
posted by moonbiter at 12:42 PM on May 23, 2003

Is there anything in America that can't be done for fun & profit?!

fishfucker: I'd pay to watch you live up to yer handle ;-)

Ufez: You probably do tip your drug dealer...you just don't know it...
posted by i_cola at 1:06 PM on May 23, 2003

Ufez: You probably do tip your drug dealer...you just don't know it...

Lousy autmomatic gratuities.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 1:17 PM on May 23, 2003

Ufez: You probably do tip your drug dealer...you just don't know it...

I guess I'll never know. He refuses to give itemized receipts. They really would make doing taxes a lot easier and more accurate.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:36 PM on May 23, 2003

What about pay pal or wish lists on blogs; good or bad, in an etiquette sense?

While one hand is copying and pasting the PayPal logo on my site, the other will be firmly placed on a shotgun with my face hovering over it.

So, no I guess.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:20 PM on May 23, 2003

August, 2002 discussion of Blogging Network at Blogroots. Do I think this will work? Not particularly. Am I interested myself as a reader or as a blogger? Not particularly. Still, I have a hard time understanding the knee-jerk portraiture of this effort as akin to wire fraud. It seems to have been started with honest intentions to create a kind of self-supporting co-op that would encourage bloggers to keep writing, rather than visions of dot-com riches.

In the last year a number of concepts have coalesced, from Google TextAds on MeFi (and potentially on blogs), to BlogAds with revenue directly supporting the publisher/blogger, to affiliate marketing and blog consortia combining different methods. The only ways that really seem to be working are getting paying gigs at advertiser-supported sites, selling books, or using the blog to get work. Other than a mere handful of sites, voluntary PayPal/AHS donations and Amazon wishlist are skimpy recompense. Even Nick Denton's experienced experiments have, in his words, "the revenue of a pop stand".

Still, I think that blogs will continue to evolve upward even as traditional media devolves downward to a less hierarchical model. There's a vast space in between that will, one day, be occupied, and to a largely unrecognized extent already is well-colonized by non-bloggish blogs such as Chris Pirillo.
posted by dhartung at 11:33 PM on May 23, 2003

I don't understand where people got this silly notion that weblogs should be a source of income in the first place. Really, what's wrong with doing something for the hell of it? Why should we even look for revenue streams?

I predict that when all the effort has been wasted, all the creative money-making ideas have been tried and have failed, we will be right back where we are now: with thousands of quirky, individual, random, frequently-updated pages of posts scrolling from newest to oldest.

I'm afraid that I might be wrong, actually. Part of the fun of the weblog-world is that it is not commercial. It's just a place for people to write, play, think, and communicate. It's a little corner of what the whole web used to be, glitzed up with CSS and pictures and daily updates.

If I'm wrong, and someone does manage to come up with a way to make money by writing in their weblog, then all this ends and we're back in the mud hole most of the web has already fallen into: miles upon miles of greedy grasping hands and nothing interesting to do anywhere. There's nothing wrong with the current system, and I wish people would stop trying to break it.
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:39 AM on May 24, 2003

Geez, what's next? Ads on MetaFilter?
posted by webmutant at 11:45 AM on May 24, 2003