Bloggasm

Haha, this is rich. Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of one of the only publications succeeding with online subscriptions (Consumer Reports), has purchased Consumerist.com from Gawker Media.

It’s an odd pair, considering that up until now Consumerist has made all its money on advertising and Consumer Reports doesn’t sell advertising. Does that mean that Consumerist will be some kind of loss leader to attract eyeballs? And the publisher claims it won’t fiddle with Consumerist’s editorial content, but given that Consumerist regularly publishes claims from consumers without much fact checking or seeking comment from the companies in question (I know, because they’ve published stuff I’ve sent them twice), I wonder whether Consumer Reports editors are worried about a tarnished image.

I recently learned that the Huffington Post has secured an additional $25 million in funding on top of the millions that it has already raised.

The Huffington Post, like Daily Kos and Redstate, is what I often refer to as a “mullet blog,” in that it has a few paid front page posters and thousands of unpaid back-enders. It is a mean, lean operating machine and has often been criticized (fairly, in my mind) for profiting off the unpaid labor of its writers.

So the question is: what on earth are they going to spend this money on?

So I read Gawker owner Nick Denton’s predictions on the downturn of internet advertising with interest, but underscoring it all was the fact that these were just predictions, and he repeatedly hammered home the fact that Gawker Media is still very profitable.

And then I wake up today and find out he’s shutting down Valleywag and selling off Consumerist.

Really?? Consumerist? The consumer-targeted blog with over 300,000 pageviews a day? And Valleywag, which has lower traffic numbers but is targeting at a well sought-after advertising niche? All this while Gawker Media continues to be profitable.

I think we’re seeing time and again that Denton is not in this for the journalism, for the ideals. Which is fine, I guess, but damn. What a ruthless bastard.

So says The Observer.

I published a piece at Bloggasm a few months ago detailing that Gawker’s monthly pageviews went up 40% after instituting the new pay policy.

My editor at Media Shift, Mark Glaser, also wrote about this issue, saying that such a pay system was wrong.

There has been a name floating around for “diary” sites like Daily Kos, Huffington Post and Redstate: Mullet blogs. Think about it, you have a small number of power users — the front page writers — in the front, and a shitload of shrieking monkeys (the diarists) on the back end, hidden from the popular front page. So don’t be surprised if these mullet bloggers set up their broken-down cars on cinderblocks in the back yard. Forgive me if I fail to be outraged.

Because I find such things interesting, every now and then I’ll check the job listings over at Pro Blogger so I can get a feel for the paid blogging industry. I mean, what better way to gauge how close we are to having those outside of the elite “A List” make a living blogging? How long until a journalism grad has just as much a chance of getting a full-time blogging position as being a reporter for a newspaper?

Well while I was over there today I came across a post titled “Applying for a Blogger Job? Treat it Seriously,” written by none other than the pro blogger himself, Darren Rowse.

“Today I received an email from one of the advertisers on the ProBlogger Job Boards,” he wrote. “They reflected back to me that they’d had a lot of ‘low quality’ job applications and made some suggestions for those looking to apply for a blogger job.”

A lot of low quality applications? How could this be? I mean, just look at these quotes from five pro blogger job listings that I picked at random:

1. IF WE GET PAID, YOU GET PAID MORE: Yep, it’s true, once you start getting traffic you’ll notice that you’re actually making some money from the various ad networks(AdSense, Kontera, etc.) that you add to your HubPages account. The cool thing is that you will make 60% or all generated ad revenue and we’ll make our 40% after that.

2. Writers start at $15 per article, with a $100 traffic bonus for the most popular article each month. You need to be able to contribute a minimum of 2 posts per month, but can contribute up to 2 posts a week if you have the time and enough funny stuff to say. [Simon: Two posts a week? You mean I can make as much as $30 a week????]

3. You can also write content 5 dollars and up per article if accepted. We pay a (5.00 referral fee) fee per blog so if You have another blog promote you can program and receive 5.00 per member If your tired of networks that don’t share the Revenue.Come over today and triple your earnings. Free shirt when you open a free account on Today.com

4. We pay anywhere between $5 - $75 a post depending on your experience writing, access to sources and breaking news, viral exposure (digg front page, news sources, etc) and length or post. We take pride in paying our writers on a weekly basis.

5. For starters, remuneration will be in the form of Google Adsense sharing with bonuses for exemplary performance. As the site builds up and advertising revenues increase, other reward options will be made available. This is a fresh new site.

Looks like you’ll have just as much a chance of becoming a full-time blogger as you’d have becoming a full-time poet or making a living participating in a pyramid scheme.

So I was hoping to have a new feature article published by today but unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish it last night. So it looks like it won’t be posted until Monday. In the meantime, here are some media-related links for your amusement.

1. Ever wonder what domain names Google has purchased? It’s always interesting to get hold of one of these lists because sometimes it gives you some insight into future plans for an online company. Well, now we have such a list. I shudder to think what kind of product Google Poo will be.

2. Popular science fiction writer John Scalzi posted a short story online about a week ago and based it on a Radiohead-like honor system for payment. At the end of the week, he posted how much money has been donated. It comes out to about 5.9 cents per word, which isn’t a bad rate for short fiction.

3. Media Shift has an interview with a creator of the Smoking Gun. What’s interesting is the site pulls in so many readers with only three staff members and a very simple Web 1.0 mindset. They’re only just now considering adding blogs to the site.

4. Conde Naste, which mainly focuses on magazine publications, is vastly expanding its online presence. They recently acquired some travel blogs and reportedly are poised to buy up more blogs in the future.