Watched The Insider several days ago — the best movie I have watched in 2008 despite it being already almost a decade old.
The movie shows a media practitioner who was caught between media commercialisation and professional values, (e.g., the duty to provide quality content and maintain credibility, among others).
People who are not in the media might not realise the struggle between unless they are working. But as far as blogging is concerned, such a struggle has shifted from traditional media to the new media, and is becoming more and more relevant to new media users, especially bloggers.
Hardcore and prominent bloggers like Kenny Sia and Lilian Chan might find this struggle more obvious than any other bloggers out there because of their expertise and higher degree of involvement in the field of blogging.
Virtual Economy
The blogging phenomenon did not first start out like what we can see today: monetisation of blogs and RSS feeds, search engine optimisation (SEO), microblogging via Tweeter, etc. People first started out blogs simply just to inform in a non-commercialised manner.
When economy shifted online, thereby creating what is known as “virtual economy”, commercialisation happens. It is just the mirroring of revolution in the real world – in the virtual world.
Commercial Values vs. Professional Values
Like Steve Pavlina said, commercialisation could be seen as something “evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, and obnoxious”. Yes, I felt bad having to announce the new direction of this blog a few days later. Some readers will get offended; some will love the idea…
No matter what happens, the world is shifting from one paradigm to another and commercialisation is inescapable.
A main reason certain readers might hate this idea is because they see that there is an agenda or a purpose behind the commercialisation of this blog (i.e., me turning it into a money blog).
Readers like this fear that the agenda will affect the quality of the content delivered to them. They now see delivery of the (new) content as biased, insincere, and profit-driven.
Most importantly commercialisation takes away from the readers the type of content they otherwise like to read just so that the blog’s direction is in consistency with the agenda of the blogger or even the sponsors/advertisers associated with the blog.
Losing a portion of readers who only wish to read my personal experiences and not about money is a consequence I have to pay behind the decision to monetise the blog.
My decision is however definite. The new direction has been set and I am currently working towards gaining and satisfying my new target audience.
First Phrase of Money Blog
Like I previously announced, the first phrase of this money blog will keep me focused on traffic-building before moving on to money-making. However, the duration of the first phrase has not been decided because I am still experimenting with it.
I’m willing to sincerely share any success tips if I could make this blog big one day (traffic is improving and I hope I’m in the right direction). With this direction, I expect my target audience — as I mentioned earlier — to be beginners who are working towards gaining blog traffic.
Second Phrase of Money Blog
People say once you double your blog traffic, you double your advertising revenue. I only could invest 50% of my trust this statement because seriously — I want to be able to witness it to verify if it is true.
If I could increase my web traffic and successfully reach the second phrase — which is to experiment with money-making opportunities — I will continue to share my success with my readers sincerely if any of the opportunity is legal and good.
Sincere Blogging
In moving towards commercialisation, what about the professional values? This is where I would like to introduce everyone to the concept of “sincere blogging”.
The concept is simple and based on the principles of “give and take”, as well as trust-gaining.
As I believe in “give and take” the sincere way, I believe people will be able to see it and appreciate it. Just when commercialisation is obvious along the new direction of this blog, I want to keep up to “sincere blogging” to inform people that this blog comes with sincerity.
I hereby launch the “Sincere Blogging” Campaign and hope everyone could support in order to offset the negative impact of blog commercialisation.
By blogging sincerely, you might want to avoid blogging about thing you are not even sure of. By blogging sincerely, you might wish to only provide accurate tips that are truthful and reflective of your blog’s success.
Since “sincerity” is relative to individual bloggers, I’m not very concerned about the boundary to which “sincere” means — you get the basic idea.
I’m studying media and have great experience in the related field. As for me, I’m now going to practice “sincere blogging” by sharing what I learnt and observe about the media-saturated world.
As I get to study the trends and developments of various types of media, I feel I am capable of proving knowledge in this field by analysing for and explaining to my readers what is in and what not in the blogging world. Most importantly I want my readers to be able to learn something from what I could offer, apply it in the management of their blogs and make their blogs livelier with organic traffic.
By practicing the concept of sincere blogging, giving away such expertise is what I will offer. In turn, it will most likely gain my blog more traffic if readers find it good. It aims at promoting a win-win situation at a maximum.
Mr. Definite is my online alter ego characterised by his openness, adaptability, bluntness, and truthfulness. You will know if you could trust me several months down the road.
If you find this concept good, you might want to give it support.
It doesn’t matter if your blog is a personal one, or of any other genre — by supporting this campaign, blogging with more sincerity is all it takes.
If you wish, you might even want to add the “Sincere Blogging” logo on your site. BUT BUT BUT, always feel free to add the attribute if you feel the need to do so!
(170w x 30h pixels)<a href="http://mrdefinite.com/?p=2044" target="_new"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/funkycrib/sincereblogging1.jpg" border="0" alt="A smoking-hot campaign." /></a>
(170w x 30h pixels)<a href="http://mrdefinite.com/?p=2044" target="_new"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/funkycrib/sincereblogging2.jpg" border="0" alt="A smoking-hot campaign." /></a>
(170w x 30h pixels Transparent BG)<a href="http://mrdefinite.com/?p=2044" target="_new"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/funkycrib/sincereblogging1-1.png" border="0" alt="A smoking-hot campaign." /></a>
(146w x 146h pixels)<a href="http://mrdefinite.com/?p=2044" target="_new"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/funkycrib/sincereblogging.png" border="0" alt="A smoking-hot campaign." /></a>
I don’t believe in 100% perfection — there has to be certain things that I might have overlooked in this campaign. Feel free to give constructive criticism!
19 comments | Jan 02, 2009 | 408 views |
| |