On Writing and Reading: Part 5, Conclusion

This will be a short post because I don't have much of a conclusion - just a few ideas on how internet writers can get paid for their work. 

The recent Time magazine mentioned that one way for newspapers to make money online would be to have a very simple payment method (they mention something similar to ITunes) where one could pay online to read an article in a paper, or pay a bit more to read the paper for the day.   You wouldn't have to commit to a subscription, but could make use of the paper's writing when desired.  This makes sense with a newspaper or magazine where you know what to expect.

How could this work with other online writing?  It's far more difficult with blogging.  For instance, Breakfast with Pandora discusses the writers at Online Salon.  It would be possible to get a community of bloggers together who decide to (somehow) charge for access to their blogs.  If the writing was good enough, overall, or topical enough (sci-fi blog community, food blog community, etc.) that might be possible.  You would still have to allow for, say, a free trial period, because the blogs would be unfamiliar.  You wouldn't want to buy a pig in a poke. 

On the other hand, although I've looked at the Online Salon, daily, for the last few weeks, I've finally concluded that it doesn't really appeal to me.  It has a "front page," which, supposedly, shows a variety of the most popular posts.  One day recently, a large percentage of the articles had to do with death, suicide, or murder.  I didn't read much that day.  On the day I originally wrote this post, the articles showed a bit more variety and a even a bit of light-heartedness that I hadn't seen much there before ("I lost an ovary and gained two dogs," "Man meets Cat, Cat doesn't care"). 

Overall, however, as far as finding new blogs is concerned, I find it much more useful to either look up obscure blog topics that interest me (I've found a number of good folk blogs by looking up "Stan Rogers" - who's not obscure if you know folk music, but he is to everyone else.  People who like him tend to be thoughtful folk enthusiasts), or go to blogs I already enjoy.  There, I either check out blogs that the blogger likes or I check out the blogs of those who make thoughtful or interesting comments.

This is something that I would miss if the "blogosphere" became more organized and profitable.  Anything which puts up walls between readers and bloggers would diminish the interactions between different groups, and that's one thing I like about the internet.  I may not care about sports bloggers at any other time but the Olympics, but, at that time, I can learn a lot about them. 

[Photo from Duke Gardens]

Comments

[DF]

I appreciate the mentions of my blog and your careful parsing of the situation.

I've also become ambivalent about Open Salon. I find that a lot of the writers there are doing personal blogs that are very revealing about their lives, which can make for entertaining reading, or which can be like an overdose on some very rich food like roast beef and yorkshire pudding, or like consuming a whole bag of Snickers minis in one sitting. Really good for a while, then making you sick. And I think that if there weren't so much competition to get on the front page, people wouldn't be so heavy and sensationalist about their content.

Making money off of writing on the Internet is impossible given the current situation where people have become used to reading everything for free. No one will pay for anything, and if there are subscription walls, people will find a way to pay one subscription and then email the articles out to a thousand people.

Right now the only easy thing to do would be to attach a "premium" surcharge to everyone's Internet bill, and have the ISPs pay the websites they designate as premium.

Other than that, it's about transferring advertising dollars from conventional media to Internet.

Someday you may see "An American in Borschland, presented by Exxon Mobil." They *do* have the deep pockets...

[M Light]

I hadn't considered that about being sensationalist in order to get on the front page, but it makes sense. I may wander around there a bit more.

"...presented by ExxonMobil and introduced by..." who is it that replaced Alistair Cooke?

I hope the bit about the Snickers minis is theoretical? (grin)