John Chow cross-markets like crazy - love him or hate him, he does it well. Today he is pushing OIOPublisher and congratulating Ryan Stewart for the world’s first ad flip (it isn’t, but it sounds good).
We need to talk about the M word. The pursuit of the unholy dollar seems to divide bloggers let’s look at the term “monetization”:
- Zern doesn’t like the term “monetize”.
- Darren Rowse only mentions monetization when quoting other posts.
- Yaro uses the term when appropriate.
- John Chow is a big fan of it.
- Technorati has indexed 11,184 posts tagged with it.
What do you think? Does the moneyblogger use of the word match the Wikipedia definition? How do you feel about bloggers who are openly in it for the money? Can you see yourself making money blogging and being OK with that?
When people talk about monetisation of blogs I immediately think of ads, sponsorships, affiliate links, paid reviews etc. In other words direct monetisation. As a reader, it can put me off at times especially if it’s overdone, there’s a lack of transparency or if it somehow causes me to dislike the “persona” behind the blog. This is a tricky one because I don’t have anything against monetisation but I can still react negatively at times.
The other side to this is the indirect financial gain that is one of the motivators behind business blogs. I don’t run ads on my blog but part of my motivation is to influence and persuade potential clients, develop a brand, market my company etc. So when you ask if I can see myself making money from blogging the answer has to be yes but as a long term strategy and somewhat indirectly.
I wont run ads, but I link via Affiliate links to other sites if its relevant to my content. Amazon, Thinkgeek etc. I don’t alter what I’d write, but I figure that if it means a few cents come my way as a result, then that’s not too bad.
I worry a lot about the integrity of what I write if money is too much of a factor.
- Aurelius
Hi Aurelius,
I like the integrity thing too - if you’re doing something that keeps you from sleeping, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
I’ve got ads and affiliate stuff too - they’re not hidden (I guess that this is the line that I won’t cross).
Cheers, Andrew