“I was of course talking about financial support – ads, paypal, etc. Perhaps I was being more opaque because I find the subject embarrassing. Also, I was once again soliciting genuine advice on how to make blogs more financially viable.”

How are the ads powered by Blogads and AdSense working for you? I think that Pat Curley has a good point in trying to create posts with links to and excerpt from your book.

I will hit tip jars and donating money to bloggers more in the future when I am not a “poor” capitalist, student and job seeker any longer and I have a steady income. Right now, I have placed some ads on a couple of blogs (Blogads and Politburo Diktat) with money that I have received from Blogads on my EGO blog. I think that more and more people will start to think in terms of how much they think it is worth to read a blog on a daily basis and value it in the same way as a subscription to a magazine or newspaper, and pay for it accordingly.

I have discussed this topic in my post, EGO BLOG IS NOT BURNED OUT…YET…

All the Best,

Martin Lindeskog – American in Spirit.

Gothenburg, Sweden.

Bloggers do more than just regurgitate news. While there may be value in forwarding links to the Uber-bloggers, this is not our only job.

We can draw attention to overlooked stories and provide analysis and insight the MSM lacks. Like others, I get most of my news online now as the MSM is just horrendous, the content is shallow.

Bloggers also act to retain news memory, as opposed to the MSM, which forgets what they wrote a week ago. I cannot count the times I have read a journalist say one thing, then contradict themselves the next day. Unless someone is on top of this, there is very little the public can do to call a reporter on their poor behavior. Who saves all of those newspapers? With blogs, all of our articles are online, and a simple search of a site can determine if the blogger has failed in being consistent.

We are the lid to the memory hole.

Don’t let your subscription to NR lapse – you’ll regret it! It is one of the finest periodicals available.

To answer some of my own questions above, just this AM I got a sort of eureka moment (I keep telling y’all I’m a bonafide knucklehead!). My NYT subscription is roughly $20/month (well, it was). Its gone now. I won’t put the entire savings into blog support, but let’s just say its freed up some funds and a portion will go, inconsistently at best, to other, more valuable “subscriptions”.

The problem with donating to bloggers is the same as donating to the homeless on the streets – there are just too many. If I gave my money to all the worthy bloggers, I’d soon find myself a beggar. I limit my blog donations to an annual $50 donation to LGF.

I have no idea what kind of direct cash flow you can expect out of your blog. But even if you are unable to develop a material revenue stream, I suspect that the PR value that you realize from blogging is quite significant for someone in your line of work. Your blog contributes to the value of the Roger Simon brand.

But they get LOTS of email.

I do better posting a URL to LGF than emailing Charles.

BTW Allah, your posts are worth it even if they aren’t regular. If you stop many people will miss you.

The question is, what’s the most efficient way for me to call it to his attention? Sit there and blog it myself or send it off to him in an e-mail and be done with it? It’s worth noting that, historically, he’s been far, far more likely to write about links that I’ve e-mailed to him than links he’s found on my blog in the course of his reading. Makes me wonder if all us little guys aren’t better off going the e-mail route with Glenn and the gang rather than toil away at stuff that’s ultimately not reaching people.

1) The network of blogs quickly “raises” the visibility of a good story from an obscure source to a small blog to high-circulation blogs to (very often) the MSM. Thus the chief value of a network of blogs; it applies Metcalfe’s Law to the news, without requiring any help from an unsympathetic news media. However, it needs to be an organism or an ecosphere with many cells, not just a small set of uber-blogs. Excuse me but this reminds me of 1 Corinthians 12.14-26:

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single organ, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, 25 that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

2) The financial problem could work out in a variety of ways, depending upon which part of “the body” you are. Lowly blogs, like mine, will have to subsist on volunteer work. Uber-blogs can exist through sponsorship and branding. In between blogs can use some of each.

For me, there are only 4 blogs that I feel compelled to “donate” to, and those are the blogs that I visit multiple times on a daily basis.

I feel that the information and commentary on those sites is without question worth the amount I would spend on any yearly subscription to a magazine or newspaper. Since the majority of these magazines and newspapers I have abandoned over the past few years, and replaced with these blogs, I have no problems at all treating these as I would formal publications.

While it is the free choice of these bloggers to spend copious amounts of their time and knowledge contributing to this great worldwide discussion, I consider the amount I donate to be a pittance for the amount of information and insight I gain thanks to their efforts.

Just my 2 cents.