Is The Era Of The Amateur Blogger Over?

from the love-not-money dept

Megan McCardle ponders the future of amateur blogging and wonders if we're seeing a transition to a world in which most high-traffic bloggers do that as their day jobs, and the line between amateur and professional becomes sharper. Megan actually points to two trends that seem mutually exclusive. On the one hand, she says that almost all the economics bloggers (which is her area of focus) she knows have been snapped up. On the other hand, she wonders if we're getting to the point where it's a lot more difficult to "break in" to the blogging profession. But clearly these can't both be true. If media organizations have snapped up all the good bloggers in a given category, then there's presumably pent-up demand that could be satisfied by any ambitious amateur who can prove herself to be up to the task. The great thing about the blogosphere is that you don't need a "big break." You just start writing, and if your work is good enough, other bloggers eventually notice you and start reading you.

But don't professional bloggers have an unfair advantage because they can do it all day? There's certainly some truth to this, but it shouldn't be over-stated. Lots of people have white-collar jobs that allow them to take blogging breaks on a regular basis. And it's not necessary to churn out 20 posts a day in order to build up a strong readership. If you can do one or two really sharp posts each day, that's likely to be enough to get people noticing your work. Moreover, having a day job often gives a blogger unique insights. One of Techdirt's contributors, Tom Lee, is a working web developer, and I think this is clearly reflected in the technically-savvy posts he contributes to the site. One of the great strengths of the blogosphere is that it's not limited to people who sit around blogging all day.

But the most important thing to keep in mind is that "breaking in" isn't really the point, and probably never will be. As I'm sure Megan will agree, blogging is not a good way to get rich. People almost always start blogging as amateurs, and they blog first and foremost because they enjoy doing so. Someone who didn't enjoy blogging simply couldn't bring themselves to devote the amount of time it takes to build up a widely-read blog; there are much quicker and easier ways to earn some extra cash. On the other hand, if someone does enjoy it, it doesn't matter too much if they "break in" because it's a fun hobby whether they're getting paid for it or not. I don't think this is a temporary artifact of blogging's early days; it's likely a permanent feature of the Internet's democratization of communications. There will always be a large number of amateurs creating online content and a smaller core of professionals, with a relatively fluid line dividing the two.

Filed Under: amateur, blogging, professional

Authenticity Is Valuable

from the tell-us-what-you-really-think dept

The New York Times has a write up about Check Out, the new Wal-Mart blog that has been making waves with its blunt style. The blog's authors are purchasing agents for the giant retailer, and they aren't pulling their punches. "My life has not changed dramatically," one Wal-Mart employee wrote about Vista, "well, for that matter, it hasn’t changed at all." It's a fascinating move on Wal-Mart's part, and it may pay off for them. Wal-Mart has done a great deal of good for the American economy -- especially low-income individuals, by improving the efficiency of the retail sector and thereby reducing the price consumers pay for almost everything. But because they've been so narrowly focused on improving the efficiency of their operations, they haven't done a very good job with PR. They're widely seen as monolithic, heartless, and and impersonal.

The new blog seems likely to pay off for the retailer in several ways. First, by making it clear that contributors are expressing their personal opinions, it gives Wal-Mart a platform to call out manufacturers who produce bad products while maintaining some distance between the blog and Wal-Mart's official perspective. Second, by allowing comments, it allows consumers to communicate back to Wal-Mart, helping the retailer's purchasers keep tabs on consumers' complaints about its products. Finally, and most importantly, it may help to personalize the store and give it a reputation for candor and openness it currently lacks. This will pay off, for example, next time Wal-Mart faces a PR challenge; a widely-read blog can give the store a way to get its side of the story in a way that's more personal and credible than a press release. The risk, obviously, is that a blogger might say something that causes flack for the company as a whole. Presumably they were careful to choose bloggers who won't say anything too intemperate. But Wal-Mart is probably in a pretty good position on this front. It's so huge that it doesn't have to worry too much about alienating its suppliers; they're going to be eager to get their products onto Wal-Mart's shelves no matter how much they might dislike what Wal-Mart says on its blog. So it can afford to be more candid than a smaller chain that might have to worry about jeopardizing its relationships with key suppliers.

Filed Under: authenticity, blogging
Companies: wal-mart

Olympic Bloggers Learn The Rules; First Rule: No Blogging Anything Interesting

from the the-gold-medal-for-idiocy dept

The International Olympic Committee is known for their ridiculously overreaching attempts to claim intellectual property rights over all aspect of the games -- including various efforts to have laws changed just to give the Olympics special trademark and copyright protection that would bar things that would normally be considered fair use. At the 2004 Olympics, we noted how ridiculous it was that the IOC even banned athletes from blogging anything about the event, afraid that it would upset the media companies who paid their millions of dollars for "exclusive" rights. About a year ago, they promised that for the 2008 Olympics they would allow some blogging, but the rules had yet to be set. Now, the IOC has come out with the official blogging rules for athletes participating in the Beijing Olympics, and they seem particularly burdensome.

Bloggers will not be able to post any audio or video (remember, that might upset the media partners). They can post still photos but only if they were taken outside of "accredited" areas or inside those areas if no sporting events can actually be seen in the photos. In other words: please make your blog posts as boring as possible and make sure they don't include any of the stuff that people might be interested in. Then there's a bit of a contradiction, as the rules state that blog posts should "adhere to the Olympic spirit," but that "there should be no commercial reference or advertising." That's funny. I thought commercial references and advertising were the Olympic spirit.

Filed Under: blogging, olympics, restrictions

Copyright, Defamation, Bloggers, DMCA, Safe Harbors, Cease-And-Desists And Anonymity... Oh My!

from the we've-got-it-all-in-this-case dept

Well, here's a lawsuit that's got all the hot button issues going around these days, and yet has received very little publicity. Both Eric Goldman and Sam Bayard provide detailed legal breakdowns of what happened (and it may take a couple reads to grasp all the details), but let's try to summarize (some of it's good, some of it's bad). Basically, there was a site that has a few anonymous bloggers posting about politics. One of those anonymous bloggers, going under the name "Tom Paine" posted something accusing the CEO of a company of something that the CEO believed was defamatory. The company sent the blog a cease-and-desist letter, demanding that Paine's post be removed. That cease-and-desist letter was then posted to the blog by a different anonymous blogger, using the name "d2."

Here's where things get interesting. The company had registered the cease-and-desist with the copyright office, and then claimed that d2 was violating the copyright. We've seen a few other companies try to do this, and the idea that a boilerplate cease-and-desist letter is copyrightable is highly questionable -- and, even if it can be covered by copyright, there are strong fair use arguments for a blogger being able to post it. Unfortunately, though, the court felt otherwise, and decided that just because the company had registered the copyright on the document, that's all the evidence it needed to say the document was covered by copyright, and posting it could be considered infringement. If that stands, it could be disastrous to plenty of other bloggers (and the Chilling Effects archive) who post the ridiculous C&Ds they receive. Indeed, this ruling may prove to have a true "chilling effect" itself. Hopefully, though, a few more high profile cases of this nature will eventually have it made clear that posting a C&D is perfectly legitimate.

But, wait... there's more! In claiming copyright infringement, the company didn't just go after d2, but used the DMCA to subpoena for information on both d2 and Tom Paine -- even though Tom Paine had absolutely nothing to do with posting the cease-and-desist, and was accused of defamation, not copyright infringement. Luckily, the court saw right through that one, and decided that there was no reason to identify Tom Paine over the copyright issue. And, of course, we don't even get to touch on the questions concerning the rights to anonymity, as well as the safe harbors provided by the company that runs the blog concerning the speech of its users -- all of which are a part of the case as well. So, if you've got some time and want to dig through all the gory legal details, go ahead. But the summary is that there's a bit of good (in that a company that tried to misuse the DMCA to unmask an anonymous blogger was denied -- even if it's a bad sign that the company even thought to use the DMCA in this manner) and there's a lot of bad (in suggesting that it may be infringement to post a generic cease-and-desist). I would imagine this is not the last we'll be hearing of this case.

Filed Under: anonymity, anonymous blogging, blogging, copyright, defamation, dmca

Google Ordered To Reveal Blogger's IP In Israel

from the sorry,-no-anonymity-for-you dept

Someone who prefers to remain anonymous writes in to let us know that: "An Israeli court has ordered Google to reveal the identity of a blogger that uses Google's own blogging platform, Blogger. The blogger accused a Shaarei Tikva comity member of illegal acts all through his blog posts. Google objected to the request claiming freedom of speech, however the court sided with the plaintiff and said that since the plaintiff is a public figure running for reelection, he is allowed to confront his accuser and clear his name." Google did, apparently, try to reach the blogger in question who did not respond, and the company only needs to hand over an IP address -- which isn't necessarily the blogger's "identity," though it could lead to it. There's nothing wrong with a court requiring a service provider to cough up identifying information on someone who has broken the law -- but it gets into very tricky territory when it comes to things like libel. We recently covered a number of similar cases in the UK where the results were the same -- but a case in the US had the judge determine that the anonymous speech was protected and the person shouldn't be revealed. It seems likely that we're only going to see more of these cases over time -- and questions about jurisdiction are only going to make them more confusing. What if the blogger in this case actually resides in the US, for example?

Filed Under: anonymity, blogging, israel
Companies: google

Techdirt In The Interview Hotseat

from the Q&A dept

It's apparently interview season, as two separate interviews that were done with me about Techdirt were just published. The first was conducted by Glyn Moody and appears in today's Guardian over in the UK. It covers a variety of things, from the Techdirt Insight Community, to this blog, to the economics I tend to write about. It was a fun interview and it's almost too bad that the limits of newsprint (and time) meant we couldn't go into more depth on some of the subjects.

The second interview was by Michael Banks, for his new book called Blogging Heroes. Banks went out and interviewed a bunch of bloggers to try to find out the history of their blogs, what makes them blog and what advice they have for other bloggers. The publisher is conducting a little marketing experiment as well, where they send each of the bloggers who was interviewed a copy of their own interview to post on their blogs. So you're starting to see a few different chapters available. It's yet another experiment in understanding how free content makes good sense, so I can't resist posting my interview here: One point that unfortunately doesn't come through clearly enough in either interview is how much we owe all the readers around here -- especially those who actively participate in the comments and the Insight Community. This wouldn't be worth doing without all of you. So, a big thank you from those of us at Techdirt!

Filed Under: blogging, interview, techdirt
Companies: techdirt