...is such a harsh term. And I don't blame anyone for trying it out. Why not try and make as much money as you possibly can- and by any means necessary?
The "Means" I have in mind in this case are are what I will be referring to as compilation blogs. I love the idea that one person can go to other people's blogs, social media pages and business affiliated websites, compile the information they harvest there, post it on their own blog as "Original-enough" content and make money from AdWords. This is obviously fair. Take a person like Jeff Jarvis for instance. He writes a blog called Buzz Machine.com (you should go read it - and what the heck, buy his book while you're there) where, I assume, he spends at least an hour or two a week writing those very long blog posts. According to his book What Would Google Do, he makes money from ads running on his site. The reason he's able to monetize (not to be confused with "Monazite") his site is because he has put the hard work into creating enough content for Google to deem his site worthy of having ads on it. To me that seems like a lot of work. Not being a writer myself, I look at the amount of content, opinions, solutions, debates and - sometimes - meaningless filler content with a tremendous amount of respect. I don't feel I could ever, with such consistency, fill that much space with so many words. I consider what Jeff Jarvis does to be Hard Work.
So here's me:
I see what Mr. Jarvis has decided to give his time to. I see the precision with which he writes his blog. I see how much time he has put into making something profitable, interesting and useful. So what is my response to such hard work and dedication? Theft.
No, it's not considered to be theft by any legal system. It's not even considered theft by the people taking the content. However, I daresay, it might be considered theft by the poor people generating the content.
How bad would it make you feel if you spent all your time, researching, thinking, writing and revising only to find you were just making another log for someone to throw on the fire of their success?
Here's an easier way to understand what I'm saying
'Why', you may ask, 'did you not just say it this way in the first place?' Because this is a blog and I am pontificating.
Since we've already been talking about him, we'll stick with Mr. Jarvis for a moment, even though CNN.com would probably be more accurate for this example - Jeff Jarvis is a Producer and Wholesaler of content. If you go to his blog you will usually find an - at least somewhat - original story, Jarvis himself wrote and published.
If another site, such as the Huffingtonpost.com took that story and a thousand more just like it, gave appropriate credit and published them. The Huffington Post would, most likely, have a higher value in the Internet economy the BuzzMachine could ever dream of.
The Huffington post is to news what BestBuy is to Electronics. Huffington Post is a retailer.
So Here's my plan
If Mr. Jarvis is a wholesaler/Producer and the Huffington Post is a Retailer, what's stopping someone like me from being a Mall?
Couldn't I host a hundred different "Retail"sites? What's the worst that could happen?
We're going to find out.
On March 1st I will be launching the The-Blog-Mall.blogspot.com
Unless I decide not to do it...
The site will be entirely devoted to sites which only exists to compile content from other sites. And the good news: There will not be a single theme to the site. We will have multiple pages, every page will have it's own theme. There will be something here for everyone... As long as someone else has already done the hard work.
Have a lovely day.
The "Means" I have in mind in this case are are what I will be referring to as compilation blogs. I love the idea that one person can go to other people's blogs, social media pages and business affiliated websites, compile the information they harvest there, post it on their own blog as "Original-enough" content and make money from AdWords. This is obviously fair. Take a person like Jeff Jarvis for instance. He writes a blog called Buzz Machine.com (you should go read it - and what the heck, buy his book while you're there) where, I assume, he spends at least an hour or two a week writing those very long blog posts. According to his book What Would Google Do, he makes money from ads running on his site. The reason he's able to monetize (not to be confused with "Monazite") his site is because he has put the hard work into creating enough content for Google to deem his site worthy of having ads on it. To me that seems like a lot of work. Not being a writer myself, I look at the amount of content, opinions, solutions, debates and - sometimes - meaningless filler content with a tremendous amount of respect. I don't feel I could ever, with such consistency, fill that much space with so many words. I consider what Jeff Jarvis does to be Hard Work.
So here's me:
I see what Mr. Jarvis has decided to give his time to. I see the precision with which he writes his blog. I see how much time he has put into making something profitable, interesting and useful. So what is my response to such hard work and dedication? Theft.
No, it's not considered to be theft by any legal system. It's not even considered theft by the people taking the content. However, I daresay, it might be considered theft by the poor people generating the content.
How bad would it make you feel if you spent all your time, researching, thinking, writing and revising only to find you were just making another log for someone to throw on the fire of their success?
Here's an easier way to understand what I'm saying
'Why', you may ask, 'did you not just say it this way in the first place?' Because this is a blog and I am pontificating.
Since we've already been talking about him, we'll stick with Mr. Jarvis for a moment, even though CNN.com would probably be more accurate for this example - Jeff Jarvis is a Producer and Wholesaler of content. If you go to his blog you will usually find an - at least somewhat - original story, Jarvis himself wrote and published.
If another site, such as the Huffingtonpost.com took that story and a thousand more just like it, gave appropriate credit and published them. The Huffington Post would, most likely, have a higher value in the Internet economy the BuzzMachine could ever dream of.
The Huffington post is to news what BestBuy is to Electronics. Huffington Post is a retailer.
So Here's my plan
If Mr. Jarvis is a wholesaler/Producer and the Huffington Post is a Retailer, what's stopping someone like me from being a Mall?
Couldn't I host a hundred different "Retail"sites? What's the worst that could happen?
We're going to find out.
On March 1st I will be launching the The-Blog-Mall.blogspot.com
Unless I decide not to do it...
The site will be entirely devoted to sites which only exists to compile content from other sites. And the good news: There will not be a single theme to the site. We will have multiple pages, every page will have it's own theme. There will be something here for everyone... As long as someone else has already done the hard work.
Have a lovely day.
This is a very interesting idea, and I wish you success. However I have to say that you are unlikely to gain any considerable traction without your own domain (I recommend Namecheap for a registrar). "theblogmall.com" is still available, though just "blogmall.com" is taken.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I almost purchased one, but then I chickened out. For some reason my Google AdSense account became disabled recently. If that get back up and running I will definitely be purchasing a domain.
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