December Energy
December Energy
Somehow it seems we are now in December.
All the indicators are there: holiday decorations, newspapers beefy
with ad content, some radio stations adding holiday music to the
playlist, a zillion commercials on TV to promote gift-giving, and gee
whiz, a few invitations to holiday parties.
And with all this holiday hoohah going on, I've barely even noticed
it. Most of the world seems to slow down as the year comes to an
end. October is the budget crunch month, November is the
wrap-it-all-up-already month. December is usually last minute
detail, some planning, and paying attention to all that holiday related
sort of detail, be it personal, business, commercial, whatever.
Retail and catalog businesses go a little nuts this time of year, as do
the auction sites.
For me December was always a pretty quiet month. When I was
consulting radio stations the on-site visits always came to a halt
after the first week in December, lasting until at least the second,
usually the third week in January. It was almost like the gift of
a special vacation. In most of my Telecom endeavors we found that
December was the slowest month of the year for sales and contracts, and
all but breezed through the month, looking forward to dealmaking in
January.
Not celebrating Christmas, yet getting so much down time, was always like a free pass of some sort.
This year December is suddenly busy, busy, busy. Work to
do. Proposals to complete. Work heating up on a new site we
are putting up (details coming soon).
Some consulting work heating up. And ideas! The kind that have me
stopping to write it down, reconsider, toss around, make a few
carefully placed calls to friends and associates to brainstorm.
Ideas, ideas, ideas! It feels like some blockage may have been unplugged.
Add to this a new and vibrant feeling about alliances and growth.
If most of this past year I've been primarily a lone wolf in my
endeavors, now it seems time to conduct joint ventures, alliances,
group and team projects.
While there is much doom and gloom associated with the events of early
last month, plus some perilous fear over what may be to come from our
enemies across the globe, there is a ray of hope, a bright light, a
newly discovered energy in these parts.
Am I crazy, or does the shock, despair, loathing and horror of the
election results actually ignite a fire to move forward despite the
powers and issues that be? Seems that way. Even the weather
has been lenient, downright cooperative thus far. Last year at
this time there was over 7 inches of snow on the ground.
From the stagnant dogpile stench of early November's quagmire arises now a new sense of fresh opportunity. Time to get to work.
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THE SHILL FACTOR
Policy statement: There exists
hereabouts absolutely no shilling, no being paid to promote or even
mention, much less discuss, anything whatsoever.
Blogosphere observation: Bloggers all over are up in arms pro or con over blogshilling.
Blogging as a productive business tool makes total sense.
Blogging internally and externally in various business models offers
potential for increased communication, spreading of the word, exchange
of ideas, and interaction in ways that expand the business model and
move it into the connected-world era.
With any paradigm shift comes the good and the bad.
There are spammers and phishers and search engine optimizers using all
sorts of embeds, spiders, back doors, and such to accrue benefit to
their exploits. This generally raises hackles all around, people
feeling a sense of violation, or as though they've somehow been
eavesdropped or spied upon.
Now comes news that some bloggers are becoming paid spokesbloggers for
goods or services. Is this wrong? Is this a horrible
violation of some trust? Is this heresy?
Is reading about a shilled poduct in a blog just a twist on these other
forms of invasive entry, or a subliminal back door into the readers'
hearts, minds, and wallets?
Well, maybe. But not necessarily in each and every case.
Those who make it clear that they are spokesbloggers are, well, making
it clear. So be it. One might have very positive feelings
toward someone who chooses to become a spokesblogger, and that feeling
may transfer over to the product. To wit: "If so-and-so-respected-blogger will shill for Brandex, then maybe it is worth checking out."
Then again, "Egad, so-and-so-respected-blogger just became Ed McMahon -- how disappointing!!" (or Suzanne Somers, Erik Estrada, Mike Douglas, Lou Rawls, Dionne Warwick, Wilford Brimley, Dick Clark, et al) might also be the reaction.
There is a fine line between disclosure and downright hawking, when intellectual shillistry (neologism
coined by yours truly) comes to the fore. Any number of bloggers
in tech or other areas may be involved in beta-testing products or
services; this is most often conducted on a need-to-know, internal,
non-public basis. This falls under the category of normal and
productive research and development. Some bloggers of note are
also board members or advisors to companies engaged in on-line or tech
pursuits. Full disclosure, often in the form of a parenthetic
note or ending statement, makes a clean statement of position, and
minimizes, usually eradicates, the shill factor.
Becoming a hawker, entering promo and rah-rah statements about a
product or service as a paid spokesblogger -- that crosses a
different line. Then one is endorsing, paid to do so. "Hi, this is Blogger Bob for Brandex, your source for today's brightest high tech tools!"
In some cases there appears to be a variation on the theme --
that of a blogger being paid to post about a product, good or
bad. Good intentions, yes, but wasn't there a certain road paved
with those about which we all know? It is too simple for that
situation to morph from "fair-minded objective paid assessor" to
"junketed, gifted, ass-kissed, wallet-fattened hawker."
There are more variations on the theme, and they all seem to be from
the old bag of tricks generally known as gool old yesteryear PR or
Marketing -- a weekend getaway to a sunny clime in the winter to
present a new product. A stipend for trying out the latest
version, model or release of something. A gift-basket coming with
a trial version for a selected chosen few. Usage for free of a
valuable product/service for a year, for life, or for you and X amount
of your friends, courtesy of Brandex as thanks for trying our new widget.
All of those are seductive forms of buying positive response. Or,
put another way: bribery, or just the simple act of currying favor and
appealing to the ego or pocket of the target(s) would-be hawkers.
I think the bottom line on this issue falls into two matters:
1. Do the spokesbloggers truly feel equal freedom to post exactly as they would have, prior to signing the spokeblogger agreement?
If they now have cause to pause before writing, they have entered into
the gray area in which readership trust and respect becomes an
issue. My guess is that this will out itself for the most
part. Unless the readers are dummies and sheep, they will catch
on.
2. Disclosure and openness will eliminate the concern. This is where the personality and ethical make-up of the blogger will prevail.
And a third point:
Outright shills will be seen as such, even those who don't bother to identify themselves or come clean in any way.
A shill is a shill is a shill. Those accepting consultative
engagements to test products, and do so openly, with blogging yes or
nay as an agreed upon aspect of the project will likely split into two
camps: the Hucksters and the Neutrals.
The Hucksters will attract more business and lose some
reader respect. Highly skilled hucksters will come up with ways
to compensate for any loss of juice on the reader side by doing a
better writing job, or relying on other skills to keep the readers
satisfied.
The Neutrals will garner less business of this type,
perhaps lose all of it. They will maintain the respect and trust
of their readers. These sort of projects will be occasional found
money, a reputation reward of sorts.
It all comes down to individual ethics.
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ADVERTISING IS NOT A BAD THING
This may all be a tempest in a teapot. About three years ago I wrote a blog essay, "In Defense of Advertising"which generated a great deal of comment and discussion throughout the
blogosphere. I enjoyed the discussion, which then was
carried on in a number of blogs. It became a cross-blog topic,
more so that than a post with comments to follow.
At that time there were few, if any, ads on blogs. Sure, some
banners existed, and there were [banner ad] sponsored blogging tools
available. But Google AdSense and BlogAds had not made the
splash, nor had the the concept of blog sponsorship hit the field yet,
full throttle.
Now we see any number of blogs with ads along the side, at the top,
along the bottom, sprinkled in the middle, whatever, wherever.
Some people post pages simply to generate readership so they can garner
click-through revenues. I know one fellow who specializes in what
he calls the bullshit blog, each one designed solely for click-through
purposes. To him it is a challenge to post attractive
search-engine-getting keywords which result in getting clicks that
point to a linked page or an adsite. Hey, he does very well in
this arena.
Open disclosure: I have two web endeavors (one a website, the other a
blog) in mind which seem like a natural for sponsorship. DeanLand
remains my unsponsored and free reign,where all are welcome to visit,
read, opine, and be free of anything but my chosen content and the
[moderated] (rarely, I must point out, actually only twice since the blog began - both were spam, btw) comments.
Yes, that's right, I have the EFF logo and urge you to support the EFF. I have the get FireFox graphic on the fauxblog (no longer active)
and will probably bring that over here soon enough, as well. But
again, that's my statement, my politics, and what you see here is what
you get --and is what I choose to post. That is the joy of a free
and open blog.
But then again, I have these two other ideas for blogs or sites that
warrant sponsors. They are not so much personal blogs as is this,
as they are topic-related pages. If it makes sense (and maybe a
little money) to have ad revenue on those bogs, then fine.
Readership, reader response, and ad response will be the measures of
success when those pages come up.
There's nothing wrong with making money.
There are other issues of morals, values, ethics --aaargh, I sound like the Bush campaign!!!!!!!!!!!--
that are of greater concern than whether or not it is right or wrong to
make money. Stuff costs money, More stuff means more money.
Less money may mean access to less stuff. Depending on how
much said stuff costs, one has to figure just how much money does one
need or want to earn?
All sorts of for-profit endeavors are underway, the efforts of good and
decent businesspeople. Much good can come of a well run and
profitable business.
Advertising is often an integral part of running a business.
Advertising can be a part of the success. There are good ads,
classy ads, informative ads, bad ads, tasteless ads, prurient ads, all
sorts of them. Some are excellent, borne of creativity and
wit. Some are terrible to the point of making one ill. It
takes all kinds.
As said above, there's the good and the bad, and that's in just about everything.
Ads in blogs -- some are good, some are bad. Some are almost
impossible to notice. I commented to a friend that I'd never even
noticed ads in her blog; she told me those ads I never even see
generate about $100 a month for her. Wow, I thought, money from
what is --to me, anyway-- an invisible source.
Ads in blogs do not cause harm. No evil occurs from an ad in a
blog. Perhaps the same argument will be the long-run take when it
comes to blog shills, aka spokesbloggers.
We shall see.
This message brought to you as a public service of Deanland, your
non-sponsored blog. Of course, if enough of you encourage me,
maybe I'll put up that Paypal tipjar one sees on a good many
blogs. Or maybe not.
As they said on Seinfeld, but don't say in the red states, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
