TheWayoftheWeb

It’s apparently easy to be seduced by the dark side when it comes to blogging, and I never even realised it had happened.

At some point, an arbitrary line was drawn as a hang up from traditional media. The great and good subconsciously set the ethics of blogging around ‘quality’ content, a lack of advertising, and denying that anyone ever checks the rank of their blog, or sometimes submits their own content to Digg or Stumbleupon. There is a slight get-out clause if you’re already well established as an A, or possibly B-list member of the blogosphere, but essentially you have the basis of the monastic blogging community. Just keep writing open, honest, quality content and relax as the world discovers you.

Sat on the other side of the equation are the blogs which offer readers the hope of making money online, or getting to the top of whichever ranking you like using some simple tools, and by downloading an e-book on the best affiliate schemes. They love to self-promote, follow 1000s on Twitter, and are happy to recommend affiliate schemes they’ve just signed up for.  They don’t publish a lot of original content, and tend to reuse ideas from more legitimate sites like Problogger.net.

It’s a simple guide, and easy to believe in. It’s a shame it’s wrong.

For starters, with 140 million + blogs, it’s perfectly viable to publish quality content for months without anyone stumbling across it. And this monastical approach can easily lead to someone giving up, or looking for ways to self-promote themselves to at least get some eyeballs onto their blog, even if it leads to a 99% bounce rate. Increased competition in every niche means it’s ever harder to be the main tech blog, or the first mommy to write about raising a child.

Even harder to accept is the idea that others might have a different idea of what makes for quality – and that our idea of a spammy blog might actually be of value to someone who hasn’t come across the original source of the information, or might have never had the chance to attract readers without a self-submitted stumble once in a while.

That’s the hardest to accept because we’ve been taught to seek out the accepted levels of quality since childhood. We were shown Shakespeare and Dickens to aspire to, we see broadsheets as superior to the tabloids, and essays and dissertations require a minimum length to be submitted. And we act shocked when someone reverts to Anglo-Saxon.

But the truth of the matter is that the quality of a piece of work, whether blog, newspaper, or verbal tirade, is down to the individual looking at it. It’s not about an expert author carefully crafting literature – it becomes about whether it confers a value to the individual. To insert a suitably literary quote: “the death of the author is the birth of the reader.”

If we really accept that modern publishing is solely about the needs of the individual who reads and interacts with it, then we should be happy that every part of the spectrum is represented – from the ad-free academic discussing topics with other scholars, to the make money blogs offering the same get rich schemes that appear on flyers on lamposts and through our letterboxes. And we should leave it to the end users to decide which work provides them with entertainment or value, even if we do placate ourselves by perhaps offering some type of warning for scams and pyramid schemes *. Or we rank down those works we disagree with via the same voting mechanisms we use to promote and share content we value and feel is relevant to those around us.

It’s why those of us fortunate enough to be gainfully employed in roles which allow us the indulgence of blogging and social networking for work as well as pleasure should stop looking down on those who may be looking at blogging as a mechanism for fame and reward to change their lives in some way.

It’s why, when it comes to money making spam blogs: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,”

I’m looking forward to the comment which will hopefully follow. Don’t forget to Digg, Stumble, and even print this post and send it to all your friends!

*Incidentally, if any blog or website offers you the chance to make money without much effort, or with a simple automated programme, the odds are pretty high it’s a scam. Trust me. If you’re seriously looking for ways to make money online, I”d advise only listening to those who are open and honest about the fact it takes a lot of hard work and luck, as it does anywhere else!

(Cheers to @snowcialmedia for the prompt to post…it might not have been quite what you had in mind!)