Money Integrity

January 20, 2005 | View Comments (6) | Category: Web Business

Summary: Making money is good. Getting paid to blog can be cool. Justifying to yourself all the wrong reasons for why you are reaching out for money is no good.

Getting paid to write on the sites we love. It's a wonderful thing for sure, but only so if you understand why you do it. Sometimes (and I am guilty of this as much as anyone) we try to convince ourselves that we are doing something for a more righteous reason than we truly believe.

When I put ads on my sites I know I am doing so with the intention of making money. I would continue to write if the ads weren't up there, but if I can make money and it doesn't effect or offend my readers then why not? However, I never started Whitespace and thought to myself that sooner or later I am going to need financial support to help maintain it.

I am sure the majority of us who start a personal blog never expect to get ads or sponsors and we definitely don't think we are going to need financial help to keep things running. If you are starting a site and there is no passion behind it then you have already failed in maintaining the success of that site. Over half the sites in my network are down and have been for some time because I didn't like the way I was running them so it was back to the drawing board. Also I knew there were better ways to make money from them (have to be honest with you). It's my job to find new and better ways to make money for myself. I have come to face it. I don't hide that fact behind some veil and if you go this route you will feel better about yourself and your audience probably will as well.

The reason this entry comes up today has to do with an entry that Molly wrote. I was unaware of this, but she is being sponsored by a company called Marqui (that is also sponsoring a number of other bloggers, might wanna check out the program if you like getting over $800 a month). I have no issues with getting paid to blog and that is an entirely different discussion anyways. The problem becomes when you start thinking like this:

A blog is a publication. Therefore, many blogs will require some means of support, and advertising is a perfectly reasonable approach - especially when it�s on the up and up. When you open a computing magazine and see an ad for Microsoft in one spread, and ad for Sun in another, an ad for AOL in another and so on, what part of "these guys are paying for this space" isn�t understood?

That seems more like she is trying to convince herself of why it's okay to get paid for blogging than to justify to her readers why she is doing it. I am going to make this simple for everyone. If you get paid to blog by a company you would never even consider using in the first place then you are doing it for the money. Not to experiment. Well maybe experiment to see how much money you can make. From running my own sites I am guessing that running her blog is not costing her that much money. At least not more than what I have to pay for hosting my sites.

So with that, to protect your integrity and keep the trust between you and your audience you first have to be honest with yourself. If you get paid to blog by Marqui then you do it for the money. It's okay to admit it. I don't care.

I know of more than a couple of people out there who feel they should be getting paid for the information they write so they are trying new ways to make money. At least they are honest about it. If I didn't think Molly was a good person then I wouldn't care about this issue so with this I hope she is listening.

Eris offers a better perspective of the issue.

Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/382

Comments

#1

Very nice Writeup man!

I agree on the “trusted friend / source” as word of mouth is very powerful

Funny thing is, I was a marketing major in college, and what do I do now, I build websites :)

Bryan (http://www.juicedthoughts.com)

#2

Haha, sometime you do 1 of 2 things in an entry.

1. Write something so incredibly awesome that nothing more needs to be said about it.
2. No one knows WTF the purpose of the entry was.

I think we are goin with 2 on this one :-)

Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)

#3

You can never be too clear about drawing the line between advertising and editorial, and these latest examples prove that point. You can justify your behavior all you want, and you might even be right, but once you’re in the position of defending yourself you’ve already lost to a certain extent.

-- Jason Calacanis

Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)

#4

I mean really. You can tell the one's who get paid because they probably, most likely, love their job more. They ask for nothing in return, and they keep on writing. Also, Molly just recently wrote about this. Seems to be going around.

Overall, it's one's own perogative if they decide their going to blog that way. I have no tiffs. I won't be paying them, of course, but whatever.

Dustin Diaz (http://www.dustindiaz.com)

#5

Scrivs, it's quite simple really. If you're sincere, and not doing it for the money, people who care will know. It's easy to spot fake enthusiasm.

If you're not, then so what? Good for you, make some cash. There are MANY blog readers out there who couldn't care less about honesty and integrity when they're reading blogs. To them it's like reading a magazine article, and the noble purpose/nature of blogging doesn't matter even one little bit.

I don't blog for money, but you might. So what.

Martin (http://www.d2.co.za)

#6

When it comes down to it, the internet is about exactly two things: intertainment and information.

As long as you provide one of the two, I think it's totally legit. Advertising is everywhere, it's a fact of life. Do you think it's a coincidence the character in your favorite movie is drinking Pepsi and not Coke?

Honestly, even if the blogs that I read were to become overwhelmed with ads - as long as I could either block them or read the sites without hassle, I have no problem. I even click on ads when they truely interest me - I've found out about many new products that way.

I suppose people need to get over the blogging is a saintly practice ideal. Sure it's a "hobby" or "personal pleasure" but you know, Ashlee Simpson sings for the love of music... not for the money.

Kyle (http://www.warpspire.com)

Keep track of comments to all entries with the Comments Feed