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?

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.