Making Money Blogging Overdone!
August 1, 2007
First off, I want to say that I really enjoy being around other people blogs. For two reasons, one being aware of the latest developments and other people experiences in their area, and second the ability to find exactly what I’m looking for fast rather than going through tons of formal documentation.
With blogging becoming more and more popular and the vast variation of the subjects and level of expertise of bloggers, internet is becoming more fun and a richer media with more “personalized” content everyday.
And the introduction of “Social Bookmarking Services” 3 or 4 years ago (like Digg and Del.icio.us) have made things a bit easier for researchers to find information by following links to articles, and other information bits, that other people found interesting and in relation to the same subject. Moreover, they added a Tag based navigation system that can help people get easier and faster access to information of interest.
Search engines, at the other side are also getting smarter everyday and are always adding more ways to properly index and retrieve content. blogsearch, and the name is self explanatory, is a Google service focused on blog search.
Finding “personalized” content has never been easier.
What is also obvious is how bloggers are trying to maximize the return from their blog site not only by becoming known as Subject Matter Experts in their industries, but also taking it forward to making money blogging and sometimes becoming full time bloggers and earning their living posting blog entries from their home offices.
Blogging income streams are not what really interest me at this moment, even though I might shed some light about this subject in the future, what really bugged me is how bloggers are overdoing both: social networking and money making.
I won’t be finger pointing here to any specific blog or site, but any search engine search result, especially when you go beyond the most famous and highly rated blog sites that appear on the first couple of pages, you will see the unbelievable. Blog sites that dazzle your eyes with millions of links to thousands of affiliates and items they think you might be interested to buy, gazillion pictures everywhere, AdSense links at exactly ever other line, and mostly bugging, pop-up’s.
I tend to agree that everybody has a natural need for money and getting more bucks is not bad after all. Truth is, I myself would love to make money out of this website, but the question that really matters is why ugly should it be and whether easy money can come without adding any value.
I bet you also have seen web pages “specially designed for AdSense”, others designed for banners, and somewhere (and you have to really search sometimes), somewhere (again!) on the page is a small piece of information, in a tiny little paragraph, available merely to drive traffic to the page through search engines.
Links from and to bookmarking and social networking sites are also being overused probably because links are one of the main criteria towards getting a higher search rank, therefore driving more traffic, and eventually, of course, it all boils down to money.
Unfortunately, lots of people have fallen into the trap of easy money. And with today modern technology, creating a blog site takes minutes to happen. So here we are, a site that looks like a blog, that feels like a blog, but does not smell or taste like a blog simply because it is value-less.
Yes I may be a big fan of information and experience sharing among people in-the-know and I adore the idea of finding straight to the point piece of information on somebody’s blog and it really hurts to see where “some” people are taking “blogging” to.
Websites, and especially blogs, should not deviate from the main purpose of their existence. Provide more “value” through adequate “content”. All I’m wishing for is seeing bloggers, and other sites, adhering to this principal, and moving towards providing more content and less pictures, more features and less functions, more information and less options.
