Of course the title is a bit lop-sided, because we’re talking about Robert “I’m flying around the country to blogging conferences” Scoble, but there’s an interesting meme floating around where bloggers seem to have to justify trying to earn a buck by putting up ads.

Quite frankly, I think it takes the whole issue of “disclosure” and “authenticity” to extreme and ludicrous levels. Its as though one loses their status as a “real” blogger the instant you put up Google Adwords, or start selling ad space — as though the purity of your writings takes on a different cast because, well, you’ve got to pay the bills.

PayPerPost and its ilk lies on the same spectrum, but is, in principle, very different.

In those circumstances, you’re literally being paid to write about something — not necessarily dictating the content of your post (either good or bad), but when someone is putting money in your hand to write about that thing … well, regardless of how easy or not you find it to bite the hand that feeds you, no one will know if you’re honestly telling the truth.

[UPDATE: Yes -- even with their new puppet site disclosurepolicy.org, my understanding is you're STILL not required to disclose whether or not you're being paid to shill]

When one takes on advertising, there may be implicit pressure, but because the ad is right there for everyone to see, there’s no hiding who the sponsors of your blog are. When you write something about a competing product / service, OR that product / service OR anything related to that product / service — with the Edel-mart climate we’re living in now — you’re kind of obligated to issue some sort of disclaimer / disclosure notice anyway.

If you don’t … well, folks will notice that. Or, if they’re not, they will. Check out the lively discussion at TechCrunch any time of the day if you doubt me on this.

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And getting print time in actual real world publications, like the New York Times, which today publicizes the takedown of even more videos by YouTube at the behest of Comedy Central.

First, a drop in traffic for social network sites. Then, a piece on how its core users are fickle and using it less and less. Now this.

And of course, let’s not forget the move by MySpace to start hunting down copyright violators as well, courtesy of gracenote.

Has the Napstering of these two new media darlings begun? (loud whisper: “YES!”)

• Massive Photoshop Plugin Site
  Ugh … the design is circa 1995 (I have expected frames), but the resource selection is pretty eye-popping. Favourite? The Digimarc Watermark Plugin. Plug-tastic!
  (tags: resources thepluginsite plugins photoshop)
• Yes … More Fonts
  But this time, the interface is the noteworthy thing. Examples of all fonts are on a pane on the left making it supereasy to choose. And man, there are a LOT of free fonts on this foundry
  (tags: reference resource free fonts)

Its not very often you get to hear someone who has been successful in putting together a business using blogs (in this case a blog network), then sell it off for millions actually discuss blogs as a business.  Jason Calacanis, however, happens to be one of those guys.  Luckily, he’s a prolific blogger.
Jason Calacanis offers his opinions in an email interview with an undisclosed journalist over at his blog. One interesting quote:

The business model of blogging is highly sustainable because the costs are so low. Many blogs today, like Boingboing.net and TechCrunch, could exist forever because they are profitable businesses. The only reason to sell would be if the shareholders wanted to realize their investment.

Which, I think highlights one of the great “un” economics of the web2.0 — the costs to starting and running one of these enterprises is so low these days, what with essentially free software, low bandwidth costs and shrinking (free?) costs of storage that its really the content and purpose that separates them all.

But, as the article in the Pasadena Star (and my last blog post) clearly intimates – it can be a helluva lot of hard work. When it comes to “blogs as news”, Mr. Calacanis gives another pithy quote:

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So, earlier in the evening I highlighted a fluff piece at BlogHerald about a piece by FastCompany about the benefits of blogging.  The thing I took exception to was how great it made blogging sound, without doing justice to how hard it is to do it professionally (and full time).

Well, for a more realistic (fair and balanced?) look at ProBlogging — in addition to the always-awesome Problogger.net — hit up this article in the Pasadena Star News which profiles a number of bloggers, including Steve Pavlina, the folks over at BoingBoing.net, and Kyle James of RatherBeShopping.net

A few interesting stats to sober your blogging dreams up as well:

• According to the chief marketing officer for Buzzmetrics less than 1% of all blogs make any money at all
• Rafi of PaidContent.org reckons there are only about 500 bloggers who are able to live off their blogging work (out of a reputed 57 million blogs)

This week, I’d like to single out a site which is a fellow SOB like myself — Service Untitled. This blog chats about all manner of service and customer related issues, and does so almost every day with a thick, meaty and thoughtful post. No fluff posts here. What’s more amazing is that in spite of toiling away for what looks like SEVEN months, his Alexa score is around 800 000. Its practically toiling away in obscurity!

If you’re looking for one of those “undiscovered” business blogs which chats about something important and topical to every business in a fresh and entertaining way please do NOT overlook Service Untitled. From angry customers to understanding the appropriate ettiquete, Service Untitled hits them all square on.

Congratulations, Service Untitled — you’re our Shout Out of the Week!

The Washington Post writes today (man, they’ve had some great articles recently) about how MySpace may be losing its cachet amongst its core audience:

MySpace usage ramped up heavily during its first year and a half, hitting 2 hours and 25 minutes in October last year. Then it dropped to about 2 hours and held relatively steady there for the past year. Facebook, a younger networking site, is still on a gradual incline, reaching 1 hour and 9 minutes last month .

There’s some interesting discussion about it as well. But in spite of the title of the article “In Teens Web World, MySpace is So Last Year”, the most fascinating part of the article isn’t MySpace. Its how it talks about how most social networks haven’t lasted; how one begets another, which begets yet another.

It makes sense in a fashion, as a commentary of a youthful audience always in search of what’s the next Biggest Thing, and in the search of what’s cool. Sure, the author makes some excellent points about how there are fairly concrete things that turn people off MySpace — the monitoring, the stalking, the strange friend requests, the spamming and so on. And certainly, there was a nice article on the logistical failures of Friendster.

But at the end of the day, what keeps the tastemakers going is what’s in search of the that next big thing. And when they move, they’ll take the rest of their “friends”, “faces”, “spaces” or contacts with them.

And sites like MySpace will only exist until that thing comes along.

I certainly agree with Cynthia from IP Democracy on this one — perhaps the real lesson is that social networks, like other constructs of what’s hip and fashionable amongst youth, may never last — and should never be built to last.
But what’s the lesson for large media companies?  (more…)