learntowriteablog

While this story is not strictly blogging, it’s a web 2.0 story on steroids. As background, wouldn’t it be cool if you could get funded to do investigative journalism as a blogger? 

There is now a start-up making this possible:  Spot.Us. It’s a community funded online market place for researching articles….

What is Spot.Us About?

Spot.Us is a nonprofit project of the Center for Media Change. We are an open source project, to pioneer “community funded reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. All donations are tax deductible and if a news organization buys exclusive rights to the content, your donation will be reimbursed. Otherwise, all content is made available to all through a Creative Commons license. It’s a marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organizations can come together and collaborate.

They seem to have a fancy grant from a journalism foundation and some online journalistic luminaries.

Here’s my thought. Way too much focus on money. Sure, money is a great place to start.  But wouldn’t it be cool if we could back projects not just by pledging cash but also, by offering visibility as in:

I could give 100K page impression above the fold, site rated as A+ on these criterion, to post an abstract of the article. 

Are there implementation problems and challenges? You bet. So it’s good that they are starting with money.  But would you be more likely to proceed on a piece if you had $1000 of cash or a guaranteed audience for your previews of 10M relevant viewers (and you got to place ads next to your article if they came over).
Just a thought. I like their vision. I’m just trying to see where it goes.

Many people think that if they blog, they can make money. The fact is, it’s true.  Lets focus on small business right now.

If you had a business selling credit card services, you might want to promote it by writing a blog answering questions for merchants who want info on taking credit cards. This would be good marketing.

Or, rather than selling something, you could model your blogging business on traditional media companies, the main goal is to collect an audience and sell advertising.  In collecting the audience, you try to produce media that keeps them coming back.  And you cross sell your own materials. In todays column, you perhaps mention a great column that you wrote a year ago or a follow up one in two weeks. If you have two blogs, you hype one in the other.

Venomous Kate is such a blogger.  There are several things that I like about her blogging including the fact that she writes well and shares real information on her economics.  For instance, here’s a post with the reality of how much she made in August.

Basically, she says that she has decided to be a little less intense and her earnings slipped to about $2.5K for August from :  LinkWorth: $637.04. PayU2Blog: $130.00. Sponsored Reviews: $468.00. Text-Link-Ads.com $188.64. Others, including private advertising: $155.55. Online freelance writing: $850.00. (This income is directly related to having established regular readership at my other blogs where my writing on certain topics served to interest various online magazine editors.)

Total: $2429.23.

Starting to blog is more than just writing and setting up the site. It’s a decision (which gets revisited all the time) about whether to blog, what to blog about, how to be open and be private, and how to find a voice and audience.

This is easier than it sounds. And it’s fun.  And I quote her post on blogging writing course

So the thought has crossed your mind a few times, but now you are ready to take the plunge.  To start your very own blog!  This is such an exciting possibility, but where in the world do you begin?  Of course you can throw caution to the wind, and sign up with a blog host, and figure things out as you go along.  But then all those words are going to start hitting you at rapid speed.  “Carnival.”  “Feed.”  “Permalink.”  “Pingback.”   And on, and on. 

You can hit the panic button OR you can backtrack and start back at the beginning.  And we’d like to help!  At blogwritingcourse.com we are offering a free blog writing course for brand new bloggers.  This course, called Get Ready to Blog covers everything from blog lingo to blog safety to blog promotion.  This is a fast and easy sweep through the world of blogging, and when you finish the course, besides having your very own “Ready to Blog” certificate, you will have the foundational knowledge you need to become a real live blog writer.

There is not much easier than starting a blog. At least for those who know how.

To find out how. Read an article such as Brain Wallace’s on how to start a blog or listen to a blogger Youtube video on how to start a blog.  The fact is that if you really want to learn this, you should probably do more than be passive.  Take a quick free course on blogging which will take you through the process.

What is zoundry? At first, I thought they were a wordpress, typepad, and blogger competitor.  And I quote:

Zoundry Raven™ is our next generation blog editor with new features. Visit www.zoundryraven.com to download. Whether you’re a beginner or active blogger, Zoundry helps you do more with your weblog: Recommend products. Drop in pictures. Tag your posts. Earn cash rewards for yourself or charities when readers buy from your recommendations.

It turns out to be a blogging interface, an editor.  hmmmm. While I haven’t found my blog software to need a new editor, I do have some forums that desparately need more elegant editors.  For instance, my parents discussion forum and the spellingcity spelling forum (a joomla add-on called firecast) have awful editors.  ……

————–

OK. I read some more. It’s not so much an editor as an integration between advertising and affiliate programs.  They somehow do what the Cj’s and Affiliate Fuels of the world somehow integrated with blogging.  Here’s more of their spiel… (and I quote):

Zoundry is a service that enables word-of-mouth marketing by passionate writers on the Web. Using one of our free Zoundry Blog Writer posting editors, you can easily place special affiliate links, called product links, in your posts and publish to your weblog. When a reader clicks on a product link and purchases the recommended product, you earn a commission on the sale.

Topsy-techie, an emerging blogger, writes on her learning to blog blog:

What keeps you from blogging?

Time Constraints – “I hardly have time to put on socks in the morning.  How can I possibly add blogging to my list of to-dos?”

Perfectionism – “What if I’m not good at blogging?”  “What if nobody reads my blog?”

Lack of Know-How – “Where in the world do I start?” 

As far as time goes, it is true that blogs don’t write themselves, but you might be surprised at the way blogging begins to blend in with your schedule.  I find that it takes the place of some of my aimless web surfing, and wasted channel surfing.  Instead, I am focusing my energies onto something I actually want to be doing – - sharing my thoughts. Blogging can be therapeutic, as well, and just might take the place of that useless “worry time” you have built into your daily schedule!

If you have read any blogs lately, you will also come to realize that no one is a perfect blogger.  Even the most successful bloggers with huge audiences have off days where almost no one visits their blog or leaves gushing comments.  And you can’t become a successful blogger without plenty of practice and plenty of mistakes.  So if fear of failure is keeping you from blogging, just go back and check the beginning posts of some your favorite blogs.  You will probably be surprised at how far they have come since their first blogging attempts.

With all the information on the world wide web about blogging, lack of know-how shouldn’t keep anyone from stepping into the ring.  There are blogs about blogging, articles galore, and step by step guides to getting started.  And thanks to BlogWritingCourse.com, there is even a free blog writing course that will guide you gently and easily into the blogosphere, and help you figure out exactly how to begin. 

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!