Oh, and just one more thing

Before I set myself up as the voice of anti-consumerism (pause for a moment to let the UPS guy in with my latest shipment from J.Crew and to allow the laughter from frequent readers to subside), I just want to clarify my position on the commercialization of the blogosphere -- something that a lot of the bloggers I read (Kate, Miche, Dani, Andrea, Ann) are discussing right now (I think it's because the ARM conference is fast approaching and "what is this thing called the blogosphere" is on the brain).

For me, the issue is not do you have ads or do you not have ads. If ads work for you and you don't mind what they do to your design, I say go for it. As far as I know the ads do not have a two-way reach. It's like deciding to put an advertisement on your car -- people can choose to look or not to look, end of story. You're the one who has to drive the car.

What I object to is when there is a hidden agenda (and some might argue that there always is -- given that we are human beings and all.) When I read a blog, my assumption has always been that the blogger is writing for a few key reasons because, well, they are the same reasons I write and I guess I'm just not super-imaginative.

1) Cheap therapy. There is something that is very cathartic about writing something and then sending it "out there" even if one suspects no-one else is reading it. It is far more satisfying that, say, keeping a journal under lock and key although I'm not exactly sure why.

2) Desire for Feedback. Most bloggers have been told at some point in the lives by someone that they are decent writers. But, writing, like having a good sense of humour or being a good driver, is one of those things that I think most people assume they do well. We never really know until we put our words out there for review. So we do.

3) Validation. This is why I think a lot of mothers blog. I think that we want to make sure that what we are doing for so many hours of our week is not invisible, because as the Suave (or is it Dove?) ad says, we often feel invisible. It's sort of an I blog, therefore I am thing.

4) Building community. It can be lonely out there as a mama. My initiation to the web as support came when I was undergoing some fertility treatments. I haunted the Resolve boards and Caroline's boards and it was really a tremendous source of comfort to discover other women going through the same thing. We helped each other through the two week wait, blowing baby dust each other's way and urging each other to eat lots of pineapple. When, as a new mother, I felt that there must be something wrong with me since what I was experiencing was in no way a Hallmark Moment, the web and the blogosphere connected me to women like Andi and Marrit and Ella who were writing what I needed to read. I wanted to share my experiences with other women who might be going through the same thing as a way of saying thank you to those who had helped me.

5) A Book Deal. Make no mistake, I would love a book deal. I am working on a book (a couple of them in fact). And when they are written, I will shop and then market the heck out of them. Although it was not my original intention, there is no denying that blogging has helped me to build a "brand" (T.O. Mama, MUBAR) I can hopefully leverage at some point in the future.

6) Remuneration. Financially, I am very comfortable (even by bloated NOrth American standards) and I realize what a luxury it is to be able to say "I'm not in it for the money." It's an option a lot of women do not have and I say if they can make some income while doing something they love, power to them. That is not to say that I do not see some of my writing as a commercial endeavour, however. When I want to review a book, I tend to get a review (read: free) copy from the publisher. I received a small honorarium for taking the time to read and review the Tracy Thompson book (a book that, for the record, I would have bought and read anyway and which I have subsequently bought with my own money for a friend) and there was no editorial pressure whatsoever.  I will be receiving  a small (and when I say small, people, I mean small -- like I can maybe buy a shirt at J.Crew if I kick in a few bucks of my own) honorarium since it looks like an essay I write will be included in a to-be published anthology.  I will be doing some editorial consulting for which I will be compensated. I think that women ought to be paid fairly for the work they do (it's one of the underpinnings of feminism) and believe you me, writing is hard work.

So what has been bugging me of late about the blogosphere is not blog ads because they are what they are. What has been bugging me is what I am calling "community building with ulterior motives". Recently, I began to get a number of emails from "new readers" saying "wow, your writing really spoke to me" and then there would be a link to their blog which I almost always check out. If I do not provide a link to them right away, they tended to email me and/or comment frequently until I felt that the polite thing to do was to link to them. Then, more often than not, they would disappear and I'd end up feeling a little used.

More and more I was discovering the "blog as soap opera/reality tv". The author's voice seemed a little shaky, a little inauthentic. There subject matter tended to be sensational and I think that readers were reading them in anticipation of witnessing a train wreck. And I began to wonder, are they writing this because it is really happening or are they writing about this because, like in soap operas, ever few weeks you had better have a wedding or a funeral so that people stay tuned?

And maybe it shouldn't matter if it is truth or if it is fiction -- most writers tend to employ a pretty healthy use of poetic license and who ever really knows where the truth lies. But whenever I have written a post about something painful like PPD, I receive emails (never comments) from women (rarely bloggers) who have stumbled upon my site via google and who tell me how much reading my story meant to them because they thought they were the only ones suffering. I can't imagine the betrayal they would feel -- I know only the  betrayal that I would feel -- if they were to learn that there was a commercial motivation behind it all. So when I see things like GreenStone's "[we have] an approach that creates community: the best possible environment for female-targeted brands," it makes me feel sad.

I do think that blogging can be an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to building community and can be a way for women to do the feminist work of consciousness raising in a day when we are simply too exhausted at night to sit in one another's living rooms and jam. And I think that it can be that tool even if there are blogads running down the sidebar. What I don't want blogging to become, however, is just another guerilla marketing technique where, at the end of the day, the true intention is to sell. I don't want to be invited to a consciousness raising section in someone's virtual living room, only to discover that what I was really invited to was a Tupperware party.

Comments

[Sharon]

Interesting Jen. I guess I'm just palin nieve. I thought for sure people told mostly the truth on there Blogs. I never really thought about the ads for money. I know it's out ther but I hate the lying that all advertisments do. So It's not an issue forme. It won't happen. SURE I could use soem spare change, but to me it would be hypocritcal to do such a thing. Well for me it would.

I never really started blogging for traffic and I know I'm not a great writer, and I'm under no illuison that I ever will be. I write my blog for ME and ME alone. I don't even have a site meter and I couldn't care less how many HITS I get a day. It's my ownplace to figure things out and brag and boast and cry and just be me. Thereaputic really, becasue being a MOM is hard.

Good one Jen

;)

[Sandy D.]

I have been thinking about the whole Google AdSense thing myself, so this is particularly timely.

The one "pro" - apart from the money, which is in short supply until my writing job takes off again - is that this branch of Google is building a new "1000 jobs for Michigan's depressed economy!" center in my immediate vicinty next year. I'd like to think I'm supporting my local economy and not just selling out for the pittance my blog ads would provide. Sadly, I think it all comes down to how much income I would be willing to forego. Also, I have no idea how much traffic is necessary, or how many ads they foist on you.

Another pro - would it make me blog more often? And con - would I post more inane things, just to keep up the tempo?

[Laura]

Trust me - if you come to my site - it's real.

Nobody would make up getting dumped as often as me....

[Ann D]

I got a few emails last year from some person named Tammy who wanted me to post articles with info that would be of interest to my readers -- but I had to leave the links it. The articles were advertorials and they led to websites that had been designed to hide product pitches. (The front page looked semi-innocuous, but once you clicked through you were jumped over to another website for the real product. SLIMEY!)

[kittenpie]

This is actually why I tend to stick to the small community I have come to know and love online. It takes a lot of reading and loving to get me to put a new blog on the roll, because I read every one of those blogs several times a week and get to know them, and they seem for the most part pretty real.

[Eryn]

Ahh, I KNEW that "thatgirlemily" page was a hoax. Someone sent it to me ages ago, and the story just seemed so... fake. Bleh. That annoys me, because real people do go through that, and it sucks! To make it into an advertisement, is just so wrong!

[metro mama]

I think you can earn money from your blog without it affecting your content. I do agree that a blogger must be up front about advertising/paid blogging.

[Mommy off the Record]

Great post. I especially love your last line. And I must say that "wow, your writing really spoke to me". Just kiddin'. I mean, it really DID speak to me, but don't worry, I'm not going to invite you to a Tupperware party or anything.

[DaniGirl]

Yah, the link-whoring has left me feeling a little used sometimes, too. "Community building with ulterior motives" is a much more polite way to put it! I wish people would just be straight about it. I also wish (colour me naive) that we could get people to skip the "I love your blog" bit and get right to the "I want you to hawk something for me." I'd at least like to see it coming, ya know?

Such interesting posts lately!!!

[Miche]

That reminds me of the viral marketing / guerilla marketing technique used this summer with "That Emily Girl" and her supposed blog and her supposed billboards all designed by Court TV to promote a show. Crazy.

Here are the links:
http://boifromtroy.com/?p=5684
http://boifromtroy.com/?p=5622
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/07/18/weird_billboard_followup_the_bullshit_deepens.php
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2006/07/angry_exwife_bi.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4261/
http://thatgirlemily.blogspot.com/

[Andrea]

Clearly I am the only one who hates ads. (And yes! It is slow here today. Why do you ask?) But I'm used to being the oddball, so that's fine.

"Recently, I began to get a number of emails from "new readers" saying "wow, your writing really spoke to me" and then there would be a link to their blog which I almost always check out. If I do not provide a link to them right away, they tended to email me and/or comment frequently until I felt that the polite thing to do was to link to them. Then, more often than not, they would disappear and I'd end up feeling a little used."

I've been getting this too. And this:

"But whenever I have written a post about something painful like PPD, I receive emails (never comments) from women (rarely bloggers) who have stumbled upon my site via google and who tell me how much reading my story meant to them because they thought they were the only ones suffering."

Only dwarfism and scary ultrasounds, not ppd. I've gone on to get to know some of them quite well, actually, which is nice. Which is why I keep all the sidebar info up, even though I'm ambivalent about it.