Youngblood
Blogging myths
By Rolly Jude M. Ortega
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:32:00 05/29/2008
I’ve been into this thing called blogging for several months now. And like millions of people in the planet who are hooked into it, I’ve been unabashedly chronicling my life. I’ve been updating my friends online about great moments in history—like where I went for coffee last night and how I fell into a fishpond last week.
You’re probably into it also, obsessively posting cute pictures of your cute pet dog or your esteemed opinion of Britney Spears’ travails. Search engine Technorati claims it tracks 112.8 million blogs on the World Wide Web. It also says that over 175,000 new blogs are created every day. The influential Time magazine hailed “You” (contributors to Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, etc.) as 2006 Person of the Year. If you don’t have a blog, where have you been? I bet not to the boondocks, for I grew up there and I have a blog!
If by any chance you’re not yet a blogger, I suggest you hurry and sit in front the nearest PC, and start building the ultimate shrine for your self—but not before heeding a few words I have to say here.
Now, don’t mistake me for some Internet marketing guru. I’m not doing this to get a commission from you (although there’s something like that in my blog, he, he.) I’m not going to parrot all those hypes about blogging. In fact, I’d like to warn you that the blogosphere sometimes, if not oftentimes, sucks.
Since people from different countries populate the world of blogs, you might have the idea that it’s so wonderful and colorful. Truth is, blog-hopping isn’t much different from trekking Smokey Mountain; you have to rummage through heaps of trash before stumbling on something of worth. I once checked out blogs in random. Of the more than 30 sites I visited, one made me say “Wow!” The rest made me say “Aww!”
Fed up with lifestyle columnists writing about their selves and the parties they’ve been to? Don’t go to Blogger or WordPress for a breath of fresh air. They’re the perfect place to look for countless sentences that begin with “I.” (Columnists can, at least, turn a foot spa experience into a long, seemingly relevant essay, and their urban slang vocabulary is impeccable.)
Many an advertisement projects blogging as a lucrative hobby. It is lucrative indeed, if you don’t take it as a hobby. For advertisers to give you much moolah, you have to drive heavy traffic to your site. The Pay-Per-Click program, for example, requires that visitors of your site click on an advertisement before you earn a few cents. And just how many of your visitors would actually click on ads, which are usually considered pesky?
The Pay-Per-Play, meanwhile, airs a five-second audio commercial every time someone opens your homepage. So you have to continually promote your blog, the common way of doing which is by asking other bloggers to put a link to your blog in theirs. More often than not, this means coming across an awful site and leaving a comment that goes this way: “Nice blog! Exchange links tayo ha (smiley).”
Another way of earning money is through the Pay-Per-Post arrangement, in which advertisers pay you when you review (read: praise) their product. This requires a stretch of imagination, as you have to connect your ordinary day with, say, the hotels in Orange County. You may devote an entire blog entry to the product alone, but doing this often may result to a drawback in the number of your loyal visitors. You know, people surf the Net for free information. They’d feel robbed once they discover you’re cashing in on their loyalty.
I personally know some bloggers who rake in hundreds of dollars almost monthly. With technical and social savvy, they spend hours on their blog, trying to reach as many people as possible. I make an effort to follow them, but I always find myself burning time online re-reading my posts, looking for typos and engrossed with the thought of art for art’s sake. I haven’t earned anything yet, but I learned one thing: Looking for money is never easy; it always involves toiling, no matter what those darn ads say.
Lastly, you might think of blogging as a socially rewarding experience. Sorry to burst your bubble, but when it comes to gaining friends and building relationships, nothing beats the analog way: conversing face-to-face, helping each other, and going out for beer. Sure, you’ll receive some sympathetic reactions as you reveal your innermost fears or rant about that ill-mannered shop assistant who didn’t recognize you’re Prince Harry. Most of your friends in blogging, however, could really care less, for they are likely busy blogging about their friends in real life. Worse, the Web is home also to people who would say vicious words against you, and it’s all the more frustrating because they usually do it anonymously.
Blogging isn’t purely fun. But despite the setbacks, I still maintain my blog—blogs, actually. I have one blog that serves as a reservoir of my angst and anger. I could write there everything, including things I choose not to say to others, because I’d be burning bridges if I did. Of course, I don’t name names and places, and nobody knows it’s my blog.
The blog keeps me sane. Pouring out my thoughts into it has the same cathartic effect as that of talking to an old, trusted friend. This reason alone is enough for me to keep on blogging.
Rolly Jude M. Ortega, 23, is a graduate of Notre Dame of Marbel University in Koronadal City, South Cotabato.
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