To date I’ve been quite polite to all the people who have approached me to run competitions for bloggers to write review of restaurant review sites. I haven’t run any because I don’t believe bloggers are the people who will mainly review on these sites.
The thing about this blog is that it is my copyright content and if I’m going to spend time writing for the web I want more of reward than the slight possibility of winning a prize. What I’m interested in is spreading my content through RSS syndication to build my profile and audience and to keep my content here in one place or in my aggregated Friendfeed.
When I participate in commercial restaurant review sites I’m helping them make money from my writing with no reward for me.
Tim Hayward on The Guardian’s Word of Mouth blog has some sensible words to say on this:
“The big food boards used to be a place to find vibrant new food writing, now they’re filled with the same old suspects having the same conversations over and over again…Why have they stagnated? Because technology has moved on. The good writers have left now…to set up their own blogs and most of the readers have followed them. Nobody needs a community to pull them together when they have RSS.”
Hayward says that he doesn’t go to online guides anymore:
“…like most people I go to Google, which in turn gives me half a dozen great blogs, better writing and a more realistic spread of opinion. Funnily enough, the reviews I enjoy reading, once I’ve been through this process, as often as not come from old school, professional reviewers whose opinions are couched in quality writing and, now they’ve caught up with the technology, are freely available on the web.”
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I’ve been writing about this topic for some time now and agree with you – why help build someone else’s media empire? See my posts aggregation = assimilation, the value of user generated content, motivation and incentives for content creation, Why should I help you build your media empire?, hyperlocal startups – all take and no give and what’s for dinner?.
Well, Fitzroyalty has a lot to say!
So which site approached you most recently Ed? Given that some Melbourne foodbloggers do permit their content to be featured on those types of sites (unremunerated?), and someone has even offered cash incentives to bloggers to join their review site, it’s a very interesting issue.
True Local wanted me to run a competition most recently. But there have been many over the years.
What I can’t work out is are they dumb enough to think people will write for them for nothing, or are they smart enough to think people will write for them for nothing? You get what you pay for. Still, I’m yet to see a coherent business model from any of them!
I allow my content to feature on FoodBuzz and so far I have received over US$200 in remuneration during their Beta period. I do not write reviews for them, rank restaurants or engage in the social media aspect of the site. I do respond however when participants comment on one of my posts there.
I think that online there are various forms of food oriented users. Amongst them are the passive readers, the forum buffs and the opinionated – like myself – who invariably graduate to writing their own blogs from participating in food forums or from commenting on blogs. But most people neither have the time or the inclination to blog. Of those some will happily contribute a paragraph to a site such as Your Restaurants on the odd occasion.
It’s understandable that Bloggers are cagey about their content and so they should be. In my day job I have been hearing Advertisers getting excited about online Ambassador Programs, where they harvest blog content under the guise of inviting Bloggers to advise their readers. Quite frankly my tongue is blue from discouraging this kind of notion. I have also been throwing the wet blanket over any suggestion of any antics resembling sock-puppetry.
This is coming about because Marketing Executives are now diverting their funds to online marketing, but don’t know how to use the medium effectively. Aussie advertising agencies lag behind in their knowledge of the media and consequently are left open to funding online entrepreneurs who see they can earn a fast buck from advertising by scraping other people’s content.
PG and I recently started SOLE Mama, in good faith as a not-for-profit project. Our sites are a free hosted blog/website and a forum, but we have discovered that the sad thing about ‘FREE’ is that we are saddled with inappropriate advertising which has no synergy with our message. So if we are to be rid of this, we are probably going to find a sponsor who shares our philosophy to pay for hosting design etc. In this instance there could be a meeting of minds between advertisers and contributors where remuneration for contributors could be involved. I just need to find the time to build the business model.
Anyone have any suggestions for that?
Hosting is cheap now, so is domain reg, so I find it best to go your own way. I think if you’re focused enough on your niche you’re too small to be able to make advertising your business model.
Most of us are wise to big corporates wanted user generated content. But I don’t see any problem with commenting on or using sites with decent content. I must admit I haven’t been to Sticky’s forums much as I tend to concentrate on blogs rather than forums. Interestingly the new variation on Wordpress coming out at the year end will facilitate much more forum like activity on blogs.
Sticky, did you see in The Australian’s media section today that a media planer would usuallybe expected to plan about $4.5m in a year but online is so much more labour intensive that they can only manage $1. That’s their excuse for trying to take a 20% cut.
So Ed, are you going to get back to reviewing Melbourne restaurants on your own site? It’s been a while between courses…
Kymbos, Ive a huge backlog because I’ve been busy but I will. There will probably be a few less reviews though as the downturn means I can’t afford to do as much.
Good news, Ed. Some of us need expert guidance.