Friday Night Quick Shots
There was another blogger conference call today, and I was all prepared to participate, when a fire came up at work that had to be put out…so again, I’ll refer you to one who did listen in, in this case Flip Pidot, for a summary of the comments of Dan Coats and the questions…
I’ve already told you I’m a contributor to Open Source Media. I’ve also been open about linking to pieces that are pro and con. In other words, I’ve played it straight up and haven’t sugarcoated anything or changed one word of what I would have written even if I weren’t involved. No one has been more vocal in her criticisms than Ann Althouse. That’s great, it’s a free country…but Ann has made a fetish of proclaiming that she has kept her ‘independence’. That’s great, Ann, you’re a big-time blogger who makes a lot of money on your own, in addition to your big-bucks law professor job. I congratulate you on your success. Wonderful for you…but those of us who are participating have lost not one iota of independence and you can take THAT to the bank.
Now, I’ve got nothing against Ann Althouse…but believe me, if I have something to say, I’ll say it…and it will never be any other way. Grow up, Ann…OSM may succeed, or it may fail…in either case, my readers deserve to know that some criticisms are legitimate, and some are not…and loss of independence is not. It’s ridiculous on the face of it – it’s like saying everyone who has Google ads has lost their independence because Google won’t place ads on pornographic sites. I’ll continue to do my best to present an informative and entertaining look at politics and current events…and I’d do the same with or without my OSM association…
Somewhat telling that Reynolds doesn’t put his picture on his sight, in contrast. For that matter who else does post their picture?
Her post name is hers last name, only name tag I can think of like that is Daily…nevermind. I’m sure that there are some others like that…
It’s all about Ann.
I can’t speak for the rest of the great masses of readers who don’t have our own blogs, but the hissyfits I see about OSM and similar blog financial details are about as inside baseball as you can get. I can’t imagine there are too many readers who really care about how a blogger gets paid.
I like blogs because I like the range of thoughts they offer. If some insidious force were to restrict what a blogger could write about, I’d probably stop reading it out of boredom. Seems to me that’s a pretty simple market-correcting mechanism.
I can’t blame bloggers for wanting to make some more money off what is a pretty time-consuming hobby. And I’ve purchased a few books over the years that I probably would not have known about if not for blogging recommendations. So somebody ought to be getting a few bucks for that.
Dennis, mtl, thanks for the input…yeah, this is inside baseball, you’re right, and I don’t intend to bring it up very often in the future. I just wanted to make clear, in case anyone had any doubts, that I’m not taking any marching orders, and if I were, you guys (my readers) will be the first to know…
Inside baseball, or monkeys throwing poop at each other? Have been kind of disgusted with the whole thing. Makes American bloggers look totally childish.
On another note: With Blogads, which I think are traffic-based, Althouse stands to make a decent chunk of change through links. (Positive or negative.) I don’t make anything off of any links to my site – but like them anyway. You know, acceptance and all. Guess that would make her a link-whore and me just a link-slut.
bebere, to us, you will always be a link-goddess…
I’ll have you know that all my links are still lovingly hand-coded. No Blogger button for me. They’re more meaningful that way.
bebere, I hand-code mine, too…old-school rules!…