I tried that adsense thing too. I made sure that everyone that knows me goes to my blog to search things via Google. In two months, guess how many times the Google search bar has been used and how much money I have made. Go on, guess. The search bar has been used 220 times and I have made, are you ready for this?, $1.49. That's right! Imma rich mofo now!!!

 

50% expect to make money by blogging?
I didn't even know people could make money by blogging until long after I started. I started because I thought I had something to say and wanted to just put it out there. Unfortunately, I find that I have very little of substance to say afterall.

 

I think that Dave's "fuck stats, make art" session would have been the one for you, it was truly inspiring - just be yourself, do things for yourself, and screw everything else.

Also, you could have spiced up the "is advertising killing blogging" session too.

To each their own but I'm just glad there's such a diversity among bloggers (diary and cat bloggers to professionals and corporate bloggers and beyond).

 

M, yes I think I made about 50 cents.

Jeannie, good thing I will inherit millions and don't need this blog to make me rich.

Miss604, I probably would have enjoy such thing if it were free. I am very fickle about paying for such things. I hope no one was actually offended at my comments, as I said, I was merely voicing my opinion on why I wouldn't waste my money or time on it.

I like the blog world too. I wouldn't have been keeping an online diary for 11 years if I didn't.

 

Barbara, I totally hear ya, I have a disgruntled post up from last year about the cost of the event and we even got rejected for one of their bursaries.

Luckily this year a) we have a dual income household and b) I didn't have to pay since I signed up as a volunteer. It worked out in that regard but man... I'm burnt out.

 

Well, you certainly managed to assign (project) a lot of motives and personality traits onto anyone who went to Northern Voice.

Apparently we were all bunch of moneygrubbing losers with our heads up each others' butts (while we're also circle jerking each other AND pissing away our time). Quite the contortionists we all must be!

You don't want to go because you don't want to be a reporter. Ehh, OK, I don't either. And that's one of the reasons that I (unlike you, apparently) don't read or write on Metroblogging Vancouver which is the closest thing to a blogger newspaper I remember seeing.

You do this blog for you, you write in bold. You record your thoughts for you. And yet you have a publishing pipeline so you can publish a prewritten post if you're having a busy day. I've never heard anyone describe a diary quite that way before. "Oh, I'm so busy today that I don't have time to write in my diary, I'll just staple this note from Friday onto today's page instead". Sounds to me like you do write for an audience, just like everybody else who has a publicly-accessible blog.


Regarding your point about posting 20-30 times a day... In my opinion that's not "blogging", that's "being a freelance writer".

I've personally only ever met two semi-professional bloggers (that I'm aware of) plus maybe three wanna-bes.

One of the semi-professional bloggers is a Vancouver woman who has a bunch of blogs about different celebrities. She writes gossip updates and spends a lot of time answering comments on the blogs, etc. to keep "the Hillary Duff community" (for example) happy, and then she sells ads on that website. You couldn't get me to do that. Nor many of the people who went to Northern Voice.

And I call her semi-professional because I know she takes it seriously and earns some money from it, but last I heard she also "has a day job".

The other semi-professional blogger is a super geek (Ontario based) who writes about technical topics and is paid to do so. He calls himself a professional blogger, but part of his job maintaining a bunch of servers that're hosting his blogs and hundreds of other blogs, plus he does promotion for the blogging network. So overall, maybe he earns half his income from actual blog writing, I'm guessing.


Northern Voice is not a bloggers' circle jerk. It is a nice, relaxed get-together of intelligent, literate people. I think most folks there are from Vancouver, the rest of BC, then Seattle and then the odd long-distance travelers (many of whom seem to come from the academic community).

And there's a program too. You can hear a lot of smart people talk about interesting things. You can learn stuff, ask questions.

No-one is paid to come and speak. They come and speak because they want to. That also helps in making Northern Voice the least expensive conference I've ever attended. This year tickets for Saturday were $40 for a full day's program. With lunch. (Plus $4.50 on top of that to park right outside the building at UBC or 2*$2.50 for transit).

If you decide that meeting other local bloggers FOR FREE (*1) won't be an admission that you're a moneygrubbing loser like the rest of us, come to the next Vancouver Bloggers Meetup (http://blog.meetup.com/30/). We're a nice bunch, really.

Note *1: Usually there's a $2 fee to the organizer of our little group (because she has to pay the monthly fee for the Meetup.com service), but I'll pay the $2 for you this time, how about that? I usually splurge and buy a coke at our meetups (that's another $3 or so), but it's completely voluntary.

 

Jank,

I knew someone would attack me for my general views of that side of blogging.

I don't think you read the part where I said "I don't care if other people get satisfaction out of using blogs to acquire those things I noted above, or are willing to pay to go mingle with fellow bloggers."

I also get the impression you believe this was an attack on NV, which it was not, it was merely my commentary on blogging in general, and the difference between motives and reasons for doing this that are out there.

My circle-jerk comment was regarding "popularity contests" and how many times there are nominated blog lists and voting done to award titles to blogs and how often it is the same blogs over and over. That is hardly a way of giving exposure to anyone new, and I think those things are merely a means to gain "links" in the search ranking.

My comment about avoiding NV because I have no intention of using this blog to profit or do journalism, goes straight to the point. I know of a lot of the people who were going, I respect them, I respect their knowledge of the subjects they speak about, but I don't need to attend seminars by the intelligent folks who do web stuff for a living. I don't see what good it would do me. In contrast I'd pay to take a cooking course, because it would benefit me, see the difference. Understand what I am saying?

I stand by my comment that I have no interest in meeting bloggers I don't know of, I don't like going to places I don't know anyone period, so it isn't an affront to bloggers, it could be any group of people with similar interests, if I didn't know anyone why would I go to mingle?

In fact I am planning to get together with a bunch of women bloggers from a web site we all belong to, I only know them via our community but I know who they are in that sense, we have shared our lives online together, and they are people I would be interested in chatting to in person because we can chat about life, our interests etc.

I have met other bloggers or people from web communities (like Spymac many many years ago) in that type of small group setting before. I have enjoyed meeting people in person that I have known online for a time by way of blogging or other web communities.

I have in fact met a lot of other people through the internet and through the blog world. I consider some of them friends still to this day.

One of the reasons I read Metroblogging is because I have been hanging about the same web sites as JS for a long time and it is nice to see how far he has come from the "old old" days.

Furthermore, If I am not interested in a topic of a blog post, I don't read it. I click through may web sites and read what interests me, no different than flipping through a magazine.

As for me writing posts a head of time, a series of posts like Good Looking Men is not really a summary of my day, so pre-writing it, and collecting the pictures when I have time to add them etc, that makes sense to me. It is still to me a journal of my thoughts, whether it is pre-written that way, or on the spur of the moment as the more personal posts are.

Finally my comments regarding people who blog for profit, was merely quoting an article I read. I find it amazing that 50% of bloggers got into to make money. I didn't know it was that many, and my comment was that in the article it stated that some of the top grossing blogs post 30-40 times a day. My POV is that I personally couldn't get satisfaction out of posting about cats or celebrities 30-40 times a day.

Anyway, I figured since you took the time to write such a long comment flaming me, I would take the time to clarify my commentary (not that I think you particularly actually care or will return to read this).

Cheers.

 

I've replied to the comments you left on my blog here.

By the way, nobody's "attacking you for your general views of that side of blogging". Get over yourself already.

 

Actually Jan you accused me of calling you and others who attended the NV "conceited", and you accused me of stating that anyone who went to NV is "all bunch of moneygrubbing losers with our heads up each others' butts (while we're also circle jerking each other AND pissing away our time)."

I never said any such things.

I have clarified my points to make it more clear to you and anyone else.

You have added my link to your twitter and have singled me out to attack my opinions, and sent your twitter readers here to read your comment. Why? Because you are proud of your attack?

You get over yourself, ain't that a rich comment coming from you.

If you have nothing better to do than come here at 2:30 am to write some novel in my comments "defending" yourself because you are somehow insulted by my 2 week old post, I have a right to clear up your misinterpretations.

 

Hey Jan... Go sell CRAZY somewhere else.. I suggest you leave this blog..

Barbs boyfriend.