There has been a lot of recent controversy over bloggers that take on different roles. For example, bonddad, Chris Bowers, and thereisnospoon have recently launched a consulting firm called NetRoots Research, Strategy & Analysis. Peter Daou has taken a job with Hillary Clinton. Obviously, Jerome Armstrong’s role within the Warner campaign has been a hot topic recently. The cold hard reality of political blogging is that it doesn’t pay very well. Only Duncan Black and Markos Moulitsas make what I would consider a decent living off their websites. The rest of us struggle to pay the rent. (This is a reminder that you can help me pay my bills by visiting the Booman Tribune store). A decision to use the skills and influence we have gained as bloggers to make some income is one that must be weighed against the loss of independence that comes with creating a conflict of interest. Peter Daou now has the job of making Hillary Clinton palatable to the netroots (no enviable task) and no amount of disclosure will restore his prior freedom to tell it like he sees it. Yet, anyone that would be critical of Peter for taking a job with the former first lady that actually pays real money and (hopefully) comes with medical benefits, is being grossly unfair. As long as everything is disclosed, we should be happy that Peter has this opportunity.
If we want bloggers, particularly community bloggers, to maintain their independence we need to make sure they can make a living. When I was down in DC for the Take America Back 2006 conference, I was talking to Susie Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla about our financial woes. We started brainstorming ways that smaller bloggers can increase their income, and we came up with the kernel of an idea.
If you have ever visited Salon.com you’ve noticed that they require you, if you want to read an entire article, to either pay for a subscription or watch an advertisement. We thought, eureka, can’t we create a monthly e-zine of some of the more popular bloggers where bloggers can contribute exclusive material not available at their own websites?
One of the problems with the diary format is that it is quite limiting. We have to make our points in no more than about 1500 words or people will lose interest and not make comments in our threads. But, a lot of us would like to do more comprehensive and well researched pieces that are not designed to encourage lively feedback. Without the pressure to constantly provide fresh content, we can put our writing, reasoning, and research skills to greater use and do more wonky or hacky pieces.
We could create a kind of co-operative, where the contributors would make an equal share of the proceeds each month from the proceeds of subscriptions and advertisements. The model would be salon.com. Do you think that we could succeed with such a model? Would you be interested in reading longer exclusive pieces from your favorite bloggers on a monthly basis? Would you subscribe to such a publication? If it helps more bloggers maintain their independence, would that be something you see as desireable? Do you have any ideas for how to improve the business model? Would you volunteer to help write the software or sell subsciptions and advertising? What bloggers would you like to see in such a publication?