if you were trying to imagine something that you’d probably not ever read in forbes, it might go a little something like this:
“I told her, ‘Look, you’d better buy a vibrator or you’re going to lose function there.'”
[ via eatonweb ]
on being bought ( part II)
both
matt haughey
and
elwyn jenkins
noticed my entry
on being bought
and their responses lead me to believe that i probably hit the
publish button a little too soon. in my defense, i was getting
ready to get head out of town for marathon, slapped together a
brief post and hit publish.
to clarify, in
my original post
, when i wrote, “…it’s not hard to draw conclusion that the
difference that could make the difference is rooted in the fact
that one author is making enough money to buy a loaded aeron chair
every month and one is making “$85…” – the specific “difference” i
was contemplating was related to each author’s emphasis on the
importance [ or lack thereof ] of the
unsavory adsense
terms and conditions
. my chain of reasoning went something like this – matt doesn’t
appear to think the terms of service issues are a big deal, but
elwyn does.
matt
makes more adsense money on
pvrblog
than
elwyn
does on
microdoc news
. therefore – and i’ll rephrase and slightly moderate my original
comments; from my perspective, it’s disconcerting to think that the
difference in attitudes towards the terms of service issues could
be partially explained by the fact that one author is making enough
money to buy a loaded aeron chair every month and one is making
“$85”.
if elwyn was making 10 times more money and matt 10 times less,
would their respective stances on the adsense terms of service be
exactly the same? what about 20 times more money? 50 times? 100?
i find
matt’s response
even more confusing. he thinks i’ve missed the point entirely:
“…I think both authors are missing a vital point in
what I wrote last week.The bottom line for all this discussion is simple:
google ads aren’t designed for typical blogs.
Maybe I made the mistake of calling my article “blogging for
dollars” since it’s not exactly blogging in the classic sense. I
don’t post about the cheese sandwich I ate earlier, I don’t post
about politics, and the site isn’t a mirror reflection of me. I’m
not the least bit worried about Google’s terms of service because
I’m not blogging my thoughts on advertising systems at the site.
It’s totally focused on gadget freakdom and not at all a personal
site.People worried about carrying Google ads on their personal site and
wondering if they would be silenced over it should worry more about
how pointless of an endeavor the ads will be.”
the appropriateness and effectiveness of adsense
ads is a completely separate issue from that raised by the terms
and conditions under which you are willing to dispay the ads.
whether or not the ads are displayed on a “personal” or a “topical”
blog is irrelevant and matt’s rationale that he’s, “…not the
least bit worried about Google’s terms of service because I’m not
blogging my thoughts on advertising systems at the site…” is the
most perplexing to me. oddly, it’s almost as if he’s saying that it’s
o.k. to accept the terms of service since he can always blog his
thoughts somewhere else without suffering the [monetary]
repurcussions.
to be clear, i don’t think the problem is that advertising
per se
will “kill blogging”. indeed, i
applied for and was accepted to the adsense program
. i
recognized
that the adsense ads didn’t make sense on
ex machina
which is a “personal blog”, but it could work well on the
{bio,medical}
informatics
section. you can’t get more “topical” than a blog that’s devoted to
the bioinformatics. interestingly, since i have a “topical” blog
and a “personal” blog under one roof, what would happen if i only
put the ads on the informatics site and criticize to my heart’s
content on the personal site? again, the issue is not with
advertising or making a buck, but rather the terms and conditions under which
we accept to that buck, regardless of the “topic specificness” of
the blog that is generating the buck.
when i wrote the original post, i was wondering on a very personal
level whether my decisions would be influenced by money. i’ve
already
stated my intentions
to not run adsense ads until the terms are changed. but this is
easy because i haven’t made a dime on
{bio,medical}
informatics
. would my answer be different if i could pay my hosting fees?
definately not. would it be different if i could buy a new aeron
chair every month? probably not. would it be different if i could
pay my mortgage every month with adsense benjamins? i’d like to
think not. would it be different if i could pay for an office and
employees and a private jet? i’d like to think not, but it’s gets a
little more difficult to say it without pausing for long,
reflective thoughts.
i can hear many of you groaning and telling me to get off my damn
soapbox. it’s only a few bucks and they’re only saying that i can’t
talk about terms and conditions, right? but what if
google
decided to impose a few more conditions on particularly popular
sites? what if they decided that
pvrblog
could only stay in the adsense program if we refrained from posting
negative posts of products from their most lucrative advertisers?
what if they tried to prevent you or i from stating that they had
put us under the new conditions? ridiculous? a few weeks ago, i
would have said it was preposterous to say that
google
would impose any restrictions on what you can and can’t publish on
your blog, topical or not.
as i said before the issue is not with making a buck, but rather
the terms and conditions under which we accept the buck. as
elwyn
points out in his
response
“Newspapers have long had this problem to solve . . .
and the newspapers who have solved it best are the prestigious
papers that people really listen to and take notice. Those that are
frequently bought by their advertisers are not taken seriously for
very long.”
i finished another marathon!
whew. i’m back from running the chicago marathon. as usual, around mile 24 i was wondering what kind of wacko runs marathons. despite that i had a great time running with kris and a friend from seattle. we christened it the “fun run 2003” and made a concerted effort to take our time, enjoy the experience and snap some pictures. i’ll post a longer update over here in the near future.
on being bought
it’s interesting to see the difference between the “Blogging for Dollars” perspective put forth by matt haughey and the position put forth by elwyn jenkins in “Blogs, Blogging and Advertising on Blogsites”. it’s disconcerting to think that it’s not hard to draw conclusion that the difference that could make the difference is rooted in the fact that one author is making enough money to buy a loaded aeron chair every month and one is making “$85”.
if elwyn was making 10 times more money and matt 10 times less, would the essays be exactly the same? what about 20 times more money? 50 times? 100?
The Amazing Adventures of The Raw Milk Maid
kris and i and a few friends and family have stopped drinking soy milk and entered into the wild and wacky world of raw milk. raw milk is straight from the cow. it’s not pasteurized. it’s not homogenized. it’s not anything-ized. it goes out of the cow and into your fridge. and if you’re lucky to have a wonderful amish farmers in your area, you can get fresh, raw milk from range-fed cows that don’t get any funny chemicals in their feed.
why do this? we’re not granola-crunching freaks, but after doing some thinking and research, we decided that it’d be fun and healthy thing to do. no, i don’t think you’re going to die a horrible, painful death by drinking milk that you get from your local supermarket, but all things being equal, we decided that raw milk was at least as healthy as the regular stuff, and quiet possibly moreso.
technically speaking, most states consider what we’re doing “illegal”. or at least consider it illegal to purchase raw milk. mostly this is due to claims that it’s unsafe. we looked at the evidence and decided that it wasn’t, if we worked with a reputable farmer. but that doesn’t make it any less illegal to purchase. how did we get around this? we don’t buy the milk. we purchased “shares” in our cow, musical, and pay her room and board, which is roughly $6 a week. basically we own part of a cow and are paying her keep and are simply picking up the milk that’s rightfully ours. so how much does it cost to buy part of a cow? we bought two shares at $150 a piece and split the two shares between a group of 6 friends and family [ 3 couples ], so it’s about $100 a family to start and $6 a week. and for that you get 2 gallons of milk, which is a good deal. it gets even better when you realize that you get enough cream from the two gallons of milk to make enough butter, cream cheese, ice cream to feed a normal family. all things considered, it’s a fantastic deal. since 3 couples are involved, we get milk in rotations. you can amuse yourself by pretending that it’s 1950 all over again, and you’re the milk-person delivering the goods.
so what’s involved? it’s easy! follow along in a day in the life of the Raw Milk Maid.
admire the gleaming, clean stainless steel vat.
take a peek!
open the valve slowly. you’ll be surprised how fast it comes out and if you’re not paying attention, you’ll be standing in a pool of milk. not that i’ve done that.
watch it gush!
get enough for friends and family.
don’t forget to clean the nozzle. being sanitary is A Good Thing.
you did remember to neatly hang the hose back on the hook, didn’t you? of course you did.
it’s o.k. you can go into the barn and say “hi!” to the skittish newborn foal and ponder why she has the power to turn invisible.
and don’t forget to go visit the cow that made it all possible. she works hard, so you’ll forgive her for laying down on the job. pasture fed animals have it rough.
when you leave, you’ll wonder if it’s against their religion to photograph an amish buggy. you decide it’s not and hope you’re right.
by the time you get home, you’ll discover that cream really does rise to the top. you can make butter from the cream. more on that in the next installment of The Raw Milk Maid.
jason kottke, budding marathonist?
it’s great to see jason get out and go for a run. and yes, running can seem dorky and purposeless, unless you set an outrageous and improbable goal such as training for a marathon.
in the end you might still look dorky and purposeless, but you’ll be a dorky and purposeless marathonist.
you can do the impossible. you just need to put one foot in front of the other. for 26.2 miles.
cam jumps into the political blog fire
i meant to wish best of luck to cam in his new role as “blog strategy guy” for general clark. it looks like one week into the job, he’s going to have his hands full with hullabaloo surrounding the general these days. it looks like he’s getting a trial by fire on the “official donnie fowler thread”. i haven’t read all the comments, but he seems to be doing a good job, all things considered.