Blog Revenue
This may seem really weird, but I'm thinking about signing up for google adsense. This would probably make us a trivial amount of money, but maybe we'll be big someday and it'll actually mean something. Or maybe it would make enough money for us to have a bloggers-only dinner party before graduation. Who knows?
Adsense would be part of a greater plan I have for the blog, and that I think the rest of you would enjoy as well. We are all very intelligent people; that's why you're here. We have interesting ideas, and our lives are interesting in different ways as well. All of this is going to increase in the next six months. Fishstix and Mardre will still be at Wash U, and their posts will remind us of our former lives and tell us how our alma mater has changed. Scantron will be continuing his (probably lifelong) stay in academia. The rest of us will be working(if we can find jobs) in some form or another.
All of that means that our perspectives will be changing in significant ways. It's an opportunity to really write good stuff. No matter what you plan to do for the rest of your life, writing is going to be really fucking important. Sure, reading is fun, and so is a lot of other stuff. But no other activity forces you to think as hard. You have to make decisions about whether you're saying what you're actually thinking, whether what you're thinking is correct, whether your audience will understand what you are writing in the correct way, and so on. Moreover, any profession that any of us will pursue will require writing. This blog provides us with a place to express ourselves freely, in a thoughtful and useful way.
As we have seen from the increased audience that we have recently received, our writing has a wide appeal among the people we know. At some point, if our stuff is good enough, people we don't know will start coming here. The more intelligent, funnier, and more insightful that our writing becomes, the more we have the ability to spread our writing among increasingly large amounts of people. For those of us who really like to write, that means we will increasingly able to gain attention for our writing. If you don't really like writing for a large audience, the posts that concern our own social group will still be interesting for others to read: people want to know how people like us interact with eachother. Thus I don't think any of the things we have now from the blog, i.e. the ability to share our thoughts with our best friends, will be harmful to this newer form of the blog or vice versa.
I want to write, I want to read, I want to learn, and I want to spend my life doing all of these things. One way to do this is to go into academia. Another is to become a professional writer. A new form of writer has emerged with blogs: the writer who can blog professionally. None of these things are mutually exclusive. I am working on some ideas for much longer posts in the near future.
For example, Sherief and I just agreed to collaborate on a post about the relation between the "marketplace of ideas" and the new phenomenon of online journal publishing services. A set of companies has come into being that makes money of off charging for access to journal articles. I think this is not a good trend, but I also think that it can be prevented from continuing. The idea that this upcoming post could actually be academically interesting thrills me. Without having to work through the whole journal/professor/institutional bullshit, we have the ability to create ideas and disseminate them.
This is what I'm talking about when I say I want to take the blog big-time. But I want to emphasize that it's not just about intellectual or academic writing. The fact that we are good writers and intelligent people means we can write about anything and make it interesting. So there is no need to really change anything about the posts we are writing now. Instead, I just want to help lead a charge towards new, more essay oriented posts that can be intellectually stimulating in a more significant way. That means drafting, revising, even doing a bit of research. We aren't just students, we are intellectuals. Plato didn't need a PhD to write the dialogues, and Machiavelli wrote the Discourses on Livy and simply sent them to a friend. Machiavelli's is the example I want to follow: we are a community of friends sharing our ideas on a number of subjects. We write because we want to, not in order to get tenure or wage partisan warfare.
What does any of this have to do with putting ads on our blog? The following:
I think it would help us recognize that the blog is a pretty big deal. When we're all living in different places, we can continue our friendship in a very interesting and stimulating way through the blog. But if this just consists of stale old in-jokes, we won't be communicating in any meaningful way. We need to recognize that authentic and original content is essential to maintaining this venue as a place for continuing authentic and original friendship. My push to become more serious includes adsense because of this: all of the proceeds will go to activities for us as a group. Whether it be going to dinner or throwing a party, we can transfer intellectual domination of the blogsphere into a useful tool in maintaining our friendship. Having a communal income sounds tricky: will people get bitchy about who brings in the most traffic or who isn't writing anything? I hope not, but if they do they can go start their own shit and it would be perfectly fine with me, and I predict, everyone else. But what if this site really does make it big? We could use the money to all go to a cabin somewhere as a group, buy weird t-shirts with nicknames on them, or donate it to a cause that we all agree is good. In the end, it is a big experiment. I am not encouraging this as a way to enrich us as individuals, but instead to form a communal fund that could provide us with interesting ways to explore the friendship that will be changing in important ways after college.
Let me know what you think. In the end I don't think this small change will really make us feel that much differently towards the blog. But small changes are the best way to go big time.
AT Money
Adsense would be part of a greater plan I have for the blog, and that I think the rest of you would enjoy as well. We are all very intelligent people; that's why you're here. We have interesting ideas, and our lives are interesting in different ways as well. All of this is going to increase in the next six months. Fishstix and Mardre will still be at Wash U, and their posts will remind us of our former lives and tell us how our alma mater has changed. Scantron will be continuing his (probably lifelong) stay in academia. The rest of us will be working(if we can find jobs) in some form or another.
All of that means that our perspectives will be changing in significant ways. It's an opportunity to really write good stuff. No matter what you plan to do for the rest of your life, writing is going to be really fucking important. Sure, reading is fun, and so is a lot of other stuff. But no other activity forces you to think as hard. You have to make decisions about whether you're saying what you're actually thinking, whether what you're thinking is correct, whether your audience will understand what you are writing in the correct way, and so on. Moreover, any profession that any of us will pursue will require writing. This blog provides us with a place to express ourselves freely, in a thoughtful and useful way.
As we have seen from the increased audience that we have recently received, our writing has a wide appeal among the people we know. At some point, if our stuff is good enough, people we don't know will start coming here. The more intelligent, funnier, and more insightful that our writing becomes, the more we have the ability to spread our writing among increasingly large amounts of people. For those of us who really like to write, that means we will increasingly able to gain attention for our writing. If you don't really like writing for a large audience, the posts that concern our own social group will still be interesting for others to read: people want to know how people like us interact with eachother. Thus I don't think any of the things we have now from the blog, i.e. the ability to share our thoughts with our best friends, will be harmful to this newer form of the blog or vice versa.
I want to write, I want to read, I want to learn, and I want to spend my life doing all of these things. One way to do this is to go into academia. Another is to become a professional writer. A new form of writer has emerged with blogs: the writer who can blog professionally. None of these things are mutually exclusive. I am working on some ideas for much longer posts in the near future.
For example, Sherief and I just agreed to collaborate on a post about the relation between the "marketplace of ideas" and the new phenomenon of online journal publishing services. A set of companies has come into being that makes money of off charging for access to journal articles. I think this is not a good trend, but I also think that it can be prevented from continuing. The idea that this upcoming post could actually be academically interesting thrills me. Without having to work through the whole journal/professor/institutional bullshit, we have the ability to create ideas and disseminate them.
This is what I'm talking about when I say I want to take the blog big-time. But I want to emphasize that it's not just about intellectual or academic writing. The fact that we are good writers and intelligent people means we can write about anything and make it interesting. So there is no need to really change anything about the posts we are writing now. Instead, I just want to help lead a charge towards new, more essay oriented posts that can be intellectually stimulating in a more significant way. That means drafting, revising, even doing a bit of research. We aren't just students, we are intellectuals. Plato didn't need a PhD to write the dialogues, and Machiavelli wrote the Discourses on Livy and simply sent them to a friend. Machiavelli's is the example I want to follow: we are a community of friends sharing our ideas on a number of subjects. We write because we want to, not in order to get tenure or wage partisan warfare.
What does any of this have to do with putting ads on our blog? The following:
I think it would help us recognize that the blog is a pretty big deal. When we're all living in different places, we can continue our friendship in a very interesting and stimulating way through the blog. But if this just consists of stale old in-jokes, we won't be communicating in any meaningful way. We need to recognize that authentic and original content is essential to maintaining this venue as a place for continuing authentic and original friendship. My push to become more serious includes adsense because of this: all of the proceeds will go to activities for us as a group. Whether it be going to dinner or throwing a party, we can transfer intellectual domination of the blogsphere into a useful tool in maintaining our friendship. Having a communal income sounds tricky: will people get bitchy about who brings in the most traffic or who isn't writing anything? I hope not, but if they do they can go start their own shit and it would be perfectly fine with me, and I predict, everyone else. But what if this site really does make it big? We could use the money to all go to a cabin somewhere as a group, buy weird t-shirts with nicknames on them, or donate it to a cause that we all agree is good. In the end, it is a big experiment. I am not encouraging this as a way to enrich us as individuals, but instead to form a communal fund that could provide us with interesting ways to explore the friendship that will be changing in important ways after college.
Let me know what you think. In the end I don't think this small change will really make us feel that much differently towards the blog. But small changes are the best way to go big time.
AT Money
posted by Austin 5-000 at 7:06 PM
8 Comments:
As per our discussion, I think its all a pretty good plan.
I appreciate much of what has been said. Writing every day, keeping touch, sharing ideas, do make this blog important to me and to us. If others want to read it, great. If Newsweek wants to pay us to put this blog on their website, fantastic. But I fear that if you are honestly already thinking about petty squabbles over revenue for the blog, you are getting ahead of yourself, and are making me quite uncomfortable. To even conceive of a world where someone says to another person, "Dude, your posts are shit; you don't deserve the money; I've been carrying this blog on my back for years now" -- makes me want to vomit on another man's penis and have him urinate on my face, with the vomit sprayed up as well. Yes, I feel that strongly. Whatever steps we can take to avoid this, and the rhetoric that makes me think of it, would be great.
Robbie- The point of my post was that we've got something big here and I think we should work to make it better. Putting ads on here would be one small thing that would remind us that we all have an interest in making this thing really work. Plus, complaints about capitalism aside, money is nice and I think it would be encouraging if we actually got any from it. That's the point. It has more to do with helping us remember that we actually want to do something with this than actually generating revenue.
I tend to look at the worst possible scenario and ask how to prevent it. There is an infinitessimal but non-zero probability that something like that could happen. There's a much greater possibility of some weird resentment between people. Thus I thought I would attempt to nip these kinds of thoughts in the bud, while proposing something I think could be really cool.
I think your response was a little out of whack. Even if you had such a hostile reaction you could at least phrase it a bit differently, keeping in mind that I put a lot of thought into this. Your half-hearted endorsement of the majority of my post doesn't do anything to mitigate the vitriol of the latter part of your comment. Thanks for sharing your nausea.
Listen, I think it may be The case that any sort of biog revenue might make things a bit more difficult on pressure to post; money, although it often seeks to or does encourage, can cause the sort of squabbles Robbie was talking about. On The other hand, a blogger dinner party could be a real good time etc. Let's keep our politics local, however, and not worry about the grandness of The future until it actually gets here. What we're doing is writing on a blog that is often funny and often insightful. We have ridiculous discussions and we have serious discussions. Both are an integral part of our lives and this is reflected in the blog. I don't care where it goes, who reads it, or whatnot-- if people do read it, that's fine....
I guess I'm just going in circles right now. I don't care about google ad-sense, its innocuous enough, and I think its fine if we all agree to spend the money on a dinner for ourselves (McDonald's if it doesn't work, Chez Leon if it does). I think if we actually try and scheme and think about 'more' and who'll read it and what if it gets big, we're going to really make ourselves nervous and stressed out and at each others throats. And I don't want robbie to vomit on my cock and then have to piss on him as much as the next guy, but god damn it if it comes to that I'm afraid i'll be put in the position where I'll have to.
No vituperation was intended. If it is a necessary function for the blog leader to be considering serious administrative and content-driven questions, and following them through to their long-term conclusions, then I will attempt to control my violent stomach oscillations as best I can.
Correction: Fishstix will be here next year. I however, will be in Florence! Just found out. I think my excitement is best expressed in this emoticon - :)
Now, on the subject of ads. This is not my blog. I already feel as though I have very little to offer except the occasional "stale old in joke," maybe with a new twist. I have neither the knowledge nor the confidence to post anything of real importance here, and that's my own problem. But if I'm going to have to start worrying not only about whether I'm contributing anything valuable to you guys, but also whether or not I'll be the weakest link in the development of the blog as some sort of enterprise, count me out. I'm not trying to be whiny or anything, or get you to change your mind. But I'd rather resign my position on the blog and just be a diligent reader and commentor than be insecure about whether or not some people want me out because I'm not pulling my weight or whatever. My level of contribution is on par with that of a mere commentor, and I'm perfectly happy with that for the time being. I only have the priviledge of blogging here because I'm screwing the administrator, and that's just fine with me. So, do what you will with the blog. I'll always be a reader, and maybe someday I'll feel qualified to write "more essay oriented posts" but at this point I'll take an honorable discharge over stressing about the significance of what I choose to write. I hope this doesn't sound bitter. I'm truly fine with what everyone else wants to do. I think maybe I'm just not as personally invested in this, which is not meant to be insulting, but to me, this is just a blog - no more, no less.
Can I maybe still get a t-shirt though? Perhaps I could just be the secretary of the blog. I'll read fan mail, arrange the parties, and manage the finances That way there will be no discrepencies about whether the administrator is using the ad revenue for expensive liquers and hookers...what do you think?
forget it all
D'Mardree-
How and to what extent you blog is your own business. However, that business could be unfairly "tainted" by the idea that some of the other bloggers hold secret tribunals to judge the worthiness of a post. This is decidedly not the case. I also hesitate on what to blog, and I don't want to post utter nonsense, but I'm not out to write journal articles or something. I say this because I know that various combinations of people on this blog (and I have been part of such combinations or factions many times) have in the past had the tendency to put their opinions on a level equal to God's holy testicles. They are more like on the level of Christ's toenail clippings. All this means is post the fuck away.
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