Comments on: Discount travel for bloggers II

By: omih

omih — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 23:40:32 +0000

There seems to be a rush recently to make a living out of blogging. It’s not something I entirely approve of. It seems to defeat the whole purpose of blogging. The whole point of blogging to my mind is that we write what we want to write. The second you start taking money for what you do then you start writing to please other people.

I am suprised all of this seems to have been overlooked more and more recently in the blogosphere. Sure, raise money for good causes (I myself am a fundraiser for a streetkids project and the blog has been invaluable) but whatever cash or gifts you receive for what you do will, of course, negatively influence the copy you write and the impartiality you sure.

Impartiality is the biggest single difference between blogs and traditonal media – lose that and there is little distinction between the two.

By: omih

omih — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:40:32 +0000

Impartiality is the biggest single difference between blogs and traditonal media – lose that and there is little distinction between the two.

By: Neil MacLean

Neil MacLean — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:27:42 +0000

I wonder if independent bloggers will always be more resistant to the corrupting influence of freebies than, say, less independent bloggers. Don’t forget, if you dig around the Times Online site you’ll find a travel blog run by the paper using TypePad. That kind of blurs the distinctions usually made between blogging and mainstream media. It could be argued, in certain cases an experienced travel journalist writing in the newspaper’s blog might actually be more immune to pr wooing than a typical (is there such a thing?) blogger. Just throwing that thought out

By: Neil MacLean

Neil MacLean — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:27:42 +0000

By: omih

omih — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 10:26:14 +0000

This is all very well but don’t forget that it’s the free stuff and cold hard cash that got papers into this mess in the first place.

The popularity of reading blogs is growing simply because people are sick of newspapers. They are sick of newspapers because their strings are pulled by everything from their politically motivated masters to their day to day advertisers.

Blogs are mostly free, cost little to run and are operated by individuals. They don’t have wages to pay or shareholders to keep happy. That is why people write honestly.

You start blogging just for freebies then the way you write changes and what you publish changes. Sure…we’d all love a few freebies but I think you also have to think about what a blog is, why it is different, and what makes you different to the mass media.

By: omih

omih — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 07:26:14 +0000

This is all very well but don't forget that it's the free stuff and cold hard cash that got papers into this mess in the first place.

The popularity of reading blogs is growing simply because people are sick of newspapers. They are sick of newspapers because their strings are pulled by everything from their politically motivated masters to their day to day advertisers.

Blogs are mostly free, cost little to run and are operated by individuals. They don't have wages to pay or shareholders to keep happy. That is why people write honestly.

You start blogging just for freebies then the way you write changes and what you publish changes. Sure...we'd all love a few freebies but I think you also have to think about what a blog is, why it is different, and what makes you different to the mass media.

By: Neil MacLean

Neil MacLean — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 05:13:18 +0000

You have hit on one of my problems, Stuart. Or at least something I need to get my head round. Bottles of Stormhoek are comparatively cheap and Nokia is officially lending its phones, not giving them away. Handing out holidays is a different matter and any travel company launching a bloggers programme needs to work out what it could give away and then test the waters to see how much gets the blogosphere excited.
It might be a simple business of switching some of the press budget to bloggers (which, I guess, is what Nokia does) but it will take an enlightened travel company to make that choice.
But then I guess that’s the point of my post…

By: Stuart Mudie

Stuart Mudie — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 04:58:56 +0000

We’re seeing this in other industries – Nokia have given away free phones to bloggers, for instance, and Hugh MacLeod has distributed more than a few bottles of Stormhoek wine to the blogosphere – and I don’t see why the travel industry should be any different.

Shaking things up (“disruption” Hugh calls it) is a risk, and it may be a while before travel companies, who strike me as inherently conservative, are willing to embrace these new communications channels, but I’m sure it will come.

I also agree completely that it’s not (only) about how many readers you have, but about who they are. The same is true for any media, of course – look at Spear’s Wealth Management Survey, the newly-launched invitation-only magazine whose UK readers must have assets of at least five million pounds.