Question for bloggers

It's not like my cooking is affected by knowing that others are making money with their cooking.

I've never seen any MTV affiliated blogs, where are they?

I don't think blogs should necessarily be setting trends and naming names, but that's because I'm almost 33 and largely incapable of doing those things. I'm happy with my 'contribution' to online music stuff.

I've never looked to make money out of the stuff I do online, but to be self-indulgently honest, I do sometimes wish I had a larger audience, so part of me wants to do Popular (for instance) as a column in some bigger place. On the other hand I like being able to flake out and not write anything for months sometimes.

I only listen to the voices in my head.

what they don't realise is that to -overtake- Apple (and not just clumsily compete as Napster/Yahoo are doing), it won't just be by being cheaper than Apple (Napster/Buy.com/etc have tried that) - they need to be cheaper than what the cheap alternative to Apple is. (Namely, allofmp3 and those impossibly cheap russian folks.) Which isn't gonna happen.

HOWEVER there's obviously room for more than one player in the market, so who knows, maybe it will be successful.

also - it looks like people hate you and are trying to get you spammed... unless you're one of the spammers! :)

Lots of real magazines are dropping their rates like crazy. I can't imagine anyone would pay a lot of money for the type of writing that requires no editing, has no overhead, and the writer does for free in their spare time anyway.

Just a guess, I have nothing to back this up.

I'm continually surprised that my weblog has an audience. Expectations don't really figure into it.

This whole thing reeks of "Hey, you know that kind of thing the kidz are into these days Jerry? I'm sure we could put together something like that". It's gonna be The Bravery of MP3 blogging.

i didnt mean bloggers, I meant writers for Village Voice, Seattle Weekly etc who only write for the webpages

hahaha I think the admins of straightup.no are pissed that I snagged "straightup" as an early gmail handle

either that or somebody from ilx got fed up with my occasional instigating

working P.R.-retail for a company pushing WMAs?

That's my experience - I write for smaller, specialist mags like e/i, Grooves, Signal To Noise, Jazzwise - those first three pay nothing for reviews and only Grooves pays a nominal amount for features. It's a hobby, wish it would pay, but it doesn't.

Isn't Jessica hopper a top-ish press officer in the US? Conflict of interest?

that conflict-of-interests hasn't stopped her from writing for a bunch of pubs: alt-weeklies, venus, village voice, marooned, etc....

has this been announced somewhere? first i've heard it. even if she has gotten out of the PR business, the point above that being a music publicist and a music journalist at the same time is a bit of a conflict. still, if she's gotten out of the PR business to pursue writing, that's cool.

Anthony, I can't see URGE taking over the market any time this decade; Itunes is hangin' on like a tick.

I'd happily do work for anybody who'd like to hire my pen, but I've long trumpeted myself as a writing whoreforhire to anyone who would listen. For some reason, I can't seem to become a lickspittle no matter how hard I try. Where is my rainbow?

Anyway, as regards my buhlawg, I mostly spend all of my time feeling guilty for not updating. Except lately, since the music ejector seat was pulled and since I can't seem to access my host company. A lesser man might suspect dark forces; I'm just assuming God's trying to tell me that the world is full enough with my variety of bullshit already.

I never said that they'd be successful, but I do assume that it would be a goal.

I share the concerns about wma, but I'm optimistic about MTV/Viacom/Microsoft's ability to market this thing, so that could compensate. If they can get people to feel like their ipods are failing them for not being able to play wmas rather than wmas sucking because they are not playable on ipods, then they've got it made. Lord knows that there are lots of products on the market that play wma AND mp3.

But either way, it should be pretty interesting. It's going to be a huge audience no matter what, and I'm excited about that. It's going to be a nice monthly paycheck, and that's great for me obviously. Also, if something is not available for posting, I can have them work out deals with small labels and international majors (think Girls Aloud, Rachel Stevens) to make sure that I can post what I want. Also, if things sell well on the blogs, there's a strong chance of them graduating to other parts of the MTV organization, so that's exciting too.

And for paid bloggers: if you used to blog for free and now you're on salary, with quotas or however they manage you, is this basically just like your regular writing jobs, except that you're writing in your "casual, voicey" style instead of your "1,500 feature style" or "blurb style"?

I won't be writing in a very different style than what I do on Fluxblog, though I will be writing with the knowledge that my audience is a little less knowledgeable/younger. There's going to be some differences in format/house style. I'm only doing three posts per week. I'm not going to stop with Fluxblog - I intend on keeping that daily. With the URGE thing, I'll be able to write about super popular hits without having to worry about major labels getting weird about it, and I'm glad about that.

Anyway, it'd be nice if it works out, and if it doesn't, it's a good platform. I mean, how damaged are freelance writers if they write for a publication that goes under? Not too much, usually.

Xpost: I wish you two wouldn't fight. Can't we all be friends in our big internet playpen and scrawl happy faces with our feces rather than a frowny mouth with what comes out down south?

Sing along and make it real.

Do you actually understand what my concerns are, or are you being defensive out of habit?

I'm in the mood to post today, apparently.

I highly doubt the blogs will do jack to affect the outcome either way. I doubt Coldplay would be so excited about Urge if the biggest names in music blogs was their primary draw.

As for the popular technology end of this, I don't really care all that much, to be honest. I have no love for Apple, so I'm not exactly up in arms about working for their competitor.

Is this a weight gag?

http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/miscreview/willywonkaandthechocolatefactory1.jpg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/graphics/2005/06/01/ftwilder01.jpg

what about a chemical weapons plant in syria? there's probably even more money in that than copywriting.

OTM. I don't wanna hear any crap justifications. Just say "Yeah, I'm selling out. So what?" I'd respect that a little more.

When I started guest-posting at a relatively well-known and now-ended "first wave" mp3 blog, the preson who hosted the server space told us that they would end "when Fluxblog goes for-profit", if not sooner. How weirdly prescient.

Also,

your concerns are that an intrinsically copy protected format, besides being awkward and unwieldy, generally runs counter to the anarchic pirate radio spirit that the audio blog was started for in the first place?

Yes, those are my concerns. Although this kind of co-optation is nothing new, and something else will rekindle the original spirit.

Also: Julianne Shepard who writes for the Portland, Oregon Mercury (weekly)? God help us all. Still, I'll try to keep an open mind if I can get links to any of this stuff.

She posted on her blog that she was looking to get rid of some file cabinets, and my friend Eric wrote her to take one of them -- when he picked them up, she apparently said something like, "Yeah, I have no use for these anymore, since I'm focusing on writing full-time now."

Um, Julianne also writes for Pitchfork and SPIN. Unless your point is that you've read her stuff in the Mercury and haven't been impressed.

He's a dude who likes music. And writes about music. And gives music away.
For free.
On the side, he wants to make some cash doing the first three.
Just not the fourth.

So fucking what if he wants to turn a buck? Why is that terrible?

I stopped by Fluxblog a little while ago and dude had some gospel from the fifties, a Mike Jones remix, some ABBA, Matthew Sweet and a mix by an ILXor. All of it is fairly listenable. I completely believe that Matt has, does and continues to post music he likes. I know for a fact that he's not madly passionate about all the music he puts up, but he genuinely likes it. That's good enough for me.

I'm not entirely in a mind of the same tastes as Matt and I don't like all of what he puts up, but there was a time when I got new tracks from him daily and heard new sounds I wouldn't otherwise hear and that shit (along with a zillion other vectors) helped mold some of my interests, some pro and some con. Flux, Gramophone, Soulsides and a few others were a major musical lifeline to me when I was stranded, pre iTunes and presoulseek in the middle of nowhere. They were touchstones that made me want, for better or worse, to share the lil' music and talk I had. They opened up some musical avenues that have put me with the woman I'm with, in the house I'm typing from and in the life I'm at.

I'm not crazy about the bandwagon hype and "tastemaker" bullshit either, but hating a band for its fans is fucking stupid.

I _have_ to conclude that this degree and depth of rancor is personal; not professional. Matt sticks his neck out a lot in ways that even I find unpalatable (coughU2cough) and that makes him an easy target, but I'm not sure why that allows for a free pass to dogpile.

He's good people. He don't kill puppies or nothing.

As for why MTV hired the bloggagerie, did it occur to anyone that perhaps the folks that make the hiring decisions at URGE might be fans of these folks writing and work and just want to give them a leg up?

this thread is a new fucking low for nearly everyone involved.

I heard one track where I really liked her guitar playing.

This girl isn't always promoting her looks. she is cute..but that isn't the focus.
She seems like a nice person...

Being a nice person is very important, not popularity.

-- I like nice people (...), December 20th, 2005. (1 trackback) (link)

But that didn't happen.

I've listened to WMAs at the same bitrate alongside complementary Mp3s (and I'm not talking about copy protected WMA streams, just plain ol' compressed digital music files here), and WMAs are, IMHO, better sounding. But putting one's stake in a service that only serves one format, especially one that is rarely used compared to the clearly popular format, even if not "the best", is a risk for any company that choose to enforce that limitation for marketing reasons.

If anyone is jumping in on getting to work on Urge, knowing those risks, and has an ear to, you know, the real world -- then cool. At least the risks of working on such a project are known.

However, anyone who just suddenly starts championing WMAs *and* starts talking about iPods in the context of containing "obstacles" for digital music lovers just because it doesn't use WMAs (which may never have been Apple's choice for all we know) has gone off some fucking delusional path that's barely retraceable at this point.

hatred/frustration/jealousy/misunderstanding = fun!!

wma vs mp3 sound-quality is a useless argument. there are tons of file-formats (including Apple's proprietary AACs) that sound better, byte-for-byte, than mp3. but mp3s are the standard and that's that.

i AM amused by the idea of fluxblog giving away a couple mp3s every weekday while URGEflux gives away a few wmas a week and expects people to be excited. but if they're gonna pay matt to do so, more power to him!

the preson who hosted the server space told us that they would end "when Fluxblog goes for-profit", if not sooner.

Fluxblog is not for profit, at all. I refuse to take money for doing that site, and that's not going to change. Taking a legitimate part time freelance job that is similar to what I do on Fluxblog is really not the same thing as Fluxblog becoming a for-profit endeavor.

Out of curiosity, what kind of day jobs am I allowed to have, if I wanted to stay on your collective good side? I'm not really sure what to make of the whole "I liked you so much better when you were broke and living with your parents" thing.

However, anyone who just suddenly starts championing WMAs *and* starts talking about iPods in the context of containing "obstacles" for digital music lovers just because it doesn't use WMAs (which may never have been Apple's choice for all we know) has gone off some fucking delusional path that's barely retraceable at this point.

Well, if you read back, I'm pretty much on the same page with you on this matter. I'm not really thrilled about the wma thing. It's a huge obstacle, and they are going to have to work some major PR mojo to get people to turn against mp3/ipod at this point. It's not impossible that they could do it, but it is sort of unlikely.

But all the same, it's just a freelance job, man. It's not my only source of income, and I'm not exactly pinning my future on this thing, and I can't imagine any of the other freelancers are either. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. It's not like I'm going to be losing money out of this, or that I'll be shedding tears for Bill Gates or whatever if they end up losing their investment.

1 Logging workers- Death rate: 92.4/100,000
2 Aircraft pilots- Death rate:92.4/100,000
3 Fishers and fishing workers- Death rate: 86.4/100,000
4 Structural iron and steel workers- Death rate: 47.0/100,000
5 Refuse and recyclable material collectors- Death rate: 43.2/100,000
6 Farmers and ranchers- Death rate: 37.5/100,000
7 Roofers- Death rate: 34.9/100,000
8 Electrical power line installers/repairers- Death rate: 30.0/100,000
9 Driver/sales workers and truck drivers- Death rate: 27.6/100,000
10 Taxi drivers and chauffeurs- Death rate: 24.2/100,000

you're such a cynical little fuck.

a) apple has no reason to ever ever ever ever ever allow any non-mp3 to play on an ipod. why would they suddenly allow their competition to work with an ipod outside of an antitrust suit?

b) the major labels will only allow their music to be distributed in copyright-protected format, i.e. if it weren't wma it'd be something just as sinister.

c) mtv/microsoft is basically depending on people's ignorance here, hence that "plays for sure" p.r. line to describe all non-mp3 digital formats.

so basically, unless someone can come up with something to topple the ipod, i think the audience for this sort of service is very limited.

bills gotta be paid. if i wanted to work as a freelance photog, my days would have been filled with weddings. actually, when i freelanced, it was. i hated it. but thats the difference between me and serious photographers -- im perfectly happy at my desk job and willing to do work here or there on the side. there will always be shitty weddings for me, but the options for paid writing are slowly beginning to dry up. a lot of the detractors on this thread realize this and face it, you're fucking scared. which explains a lot of the attitude here -- these people beat you to one of the remaining money gigs. i can see how that stings.

anthony -- im *really* disappointed in you. i mean, you live with my best friend in the entire world and here you are, acting like a jealous twat because your internet arch enemy j-shep wound up with a sweet gig. i know this only highlights your own shortcomings, but if that's the case, then stop watching digital cable, get off your lazy ass and go find a real job that isnt hawking pregnancy porn at the local video store.

dom -- fat jokes? are you fucking serious? did i just suddenly time travel back to first grade? what next, are you gonna pull my hair and throw sand in my face? if you really wanna go there, post a picture of yourself big boy. i cant imagine you being quite the adonis. i guess i could start a betting pool on whether you'll be balding or not, that seems to be the shared genetic trait between all of you.

jess -- of all the dudes to get salty and jeal on this thread, its the kettle calling the pot black. dude, you work for a fucking free weekly, acting like a monkey on a typewriter for whatever live act that rolls into town. if it werent for all the tranny escorts providing ad revenue, your mag would be bankrupt. i cant really see how that puts you on a high and mightier horse.

to everyone -- are you for real? did we all not live through the golden days of the dot com goldrush? this shit should be expected, as its the only business model that seems to exist: bloggers/internet types create new media format that becomes a popular phenomenon with culture at large. threatens the livelihood of existing capitalist structures. men in fancy armani board suits chew away on their cigars, wondering how they can be a part of this and oh, of course, generate revenue. so they hire the mp3 bloggers.

i have to hand it to them, this is the first time i've seen MTV take any sort of risk in a long time. WMA's, when the market, as it exists currently, is clearly MP3? thats kinda ballsy. well, for them. id expect MTV to stick to the trend. then again, most folks thought AAC would go the way of the newton, but lo and behold, its holding up just fine. so will this service, because as we've learned, there's a place for everything in the world. if its a dead end like yancey says, then MTV will have to adapt and survive.

allow me to be the one of the few voices of support here and wish the best of luck to julianne, jessica, matt and all the others who were hired. between fending off turbodouches [like, you know, this thread] and finding new content that will please the higher-ups will be tough. but i think you can handle it -- i mean, thats why they picked you, out of countless bloggers, right?

never said i was, dude!

blah blah blah. if anyone knows what jealousy can do, its me.

My view on this whole thing is that I plan not to use it, much like I never use iTunes (except maybe three times in dire emergency situations) or Rhapsody or any other online music content source, until I absolutely have to. From a technology perspective, I think using WMAs is short-sighted but I don't particularly care all that much as I can convert them to MP3 easily enough; also I think that the more people out there doing this type of service, the better (a virtual Apple monopoly isn't a nicer thought than a hypothetical Microsoft monopoly even if it's nicer looking).

Basically, either side of this getting this worked up at this stage is completely ludicrous; at the end of the day, everyone kind of needs to just shut up and grab the money.

Microsoft owns Windows, is probably going to be installing Urge on it, I think the word 'muscle' isn't too off base.

here you go = graduated from uarts. doomed for failure.

that said, the whole thing is going to end up being a losing proposition, so my advice to matthew (and the rest) still stands.

http://www.care-bears.com/CareBears/html/index.html

So MSN is going to get a little muscle but only via its searching revenue. Also, the fact that Urge is going to be installed on Windows machines is no guarantee that people will use it, particularly all of the people with iPods who are already quite comfortable with iTunes. No one is going to dislodge that application from its niche without a major fuck-up on Apple's end.

This is totally a "grab the money until the business plan sorts itself out or the venture tanks" situation.

(xpost: you little bugger!)

Is he supposed to come online and say "hey I'm a shill for a crap company with no future!"

When it all busts the guy will have some money in the bank, another notch on the resume, and maybe turned some kids onto Girls Aloud. Onto the next venture. Give him a break.

http://is0.okcupid.com/users/574/116/5751160520077340077/p1132140733.jpg

http://www.lusu.co.uk/downloads/scan/dom.jpg

America Online on Tuesday sealed a $1 billion transaction to sell a 5 percent stake to Google Inc. in a deal that deepens the ties binding two of the Web's most popular Web sites while thwarting Microsoft Corp.'s efforts to grab a larger piece of the booming Internet advertising market.

Approving the expanded alliance had been considered a mere formality last Friday when AOL's corporate parent, Time Warner Inc., abruptly ended several months of negotiations with Microsoft, which had hoped to supplant Google as AOL's main advertising partner.

Many of the details, including a plan that may display more graphical ads on some of Google's traditionally sparse Web pages, had been leaked to the media in the last few days.

There was one significant new twist in Tuesday's official announcement: users of AOL's Internet-leading instant messaging service will be able to communicate with the users of Google's 4-month-old service. Microsoft and Yahoo Inc., another major rival of both Google and AOL, plan to link their instant messaging services next year.

Also, when did this board become slashdot?

who are you, immanuel kant?

al this is totally ridiculous! forgetting the whats and hows and whys of who should write about which music (and when and where), i'll totally vouch for all three people they chose, in those definitive roles. but ok i've remembered now: a rap-centric country critic seems a hell of a lot more interesting to me than a country-centric country critic

such typical british understatement!

I feel like I'm in a cyberthriller.

25% that
25% the presentation
25% the people writing for it
25% arguing is fun

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (ASV)

And why do you take note of the grain of dust in your brother's eye, but take no note of the bit of wood which is in your eye? (BBE)

But why lookest thou on the mote that is in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam that is in thine eye? (DBY)

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (KJV)

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thy own eye? (WBS)

And why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye? (WEY)

And why dost thou behold the mote that 'is' in thy brother's eye, and the beam that 'is' in thine own eye dost not consider? (YLT)

x-post john darnielle is probably going to be too, but neither of them has said that what's shitty about this company isn't shitty.

Also, if things sell well on the blogs, there's a strong chance of them graduating to other parts of the MTV organization, so that's exciting too.

maps of norway!

Certainly, Sir

http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Pier/6369/splittingheirs1.jpg

Unfortunately for Gozer, events interfered. Three unemployed parapsychology professors had formed a business called Ghostbusters, a spectral investigation and removal service armed with technology of their own design that could track down and capture the entities with unprecedented ease.

Just checking! Sometimes it's hard to tell.

http://record.wustl.edu/archive/2000/11-17-00/photos/ramis.jpg
Anthony: You still have your health.

where's chris save the robot in this? agent provocateur!

So I read back:

Matthew: I share the concerns about wma, but I'm optimistic about MTV/Viacom/Microsoft's ability to market this thing, so that could compensate. If they can get people to feel like their ipods are failing them for not being able to play wmas rather than wmas sucking because they are not playable on ipods, then they've got it made. Lord knows that there are lots of products on the market that play wma AND mp3.

Hi PR Mojo!

...

This is soooo not going to matter anyway, once every bored programmer creates a WMA-->Mp3 tool, besides the dozens of tools that do this already of course.. there will just be an URGE to create a better one! (HAW HAW)

I'm not against Urge nor the Urge bloggers.. just wanted to be sure the people about to work for Urge just know that things are probably not going to be dot-com rosy forever and hopefuly don't get suckered into believing their own PR (which is not the same thing as hating onself working a job one hates, as some above may have childishly implied.)

Besta luck, Urge!

http://eil.com/newgallery/Urge-Overkill-Now-Thats-The-Bar-219375.jpg

i'm going to retire in stull.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wma+to+mp3+conversion

..jam-packed with quality adult footage, My Ass is Haunted features something you're not going to see anywhere else; not for a while, anyway - An extended girl/girl anal scene with Ryan Conner and A VERY PREGNANT Belladonna. This scene, in addition to consuming most of Disc 2, could very well be the best sequence I have watched in a long time...and I watch a LOT of porno.

As if that wasn't enough, immediately following that scene is one just as nasty with Isobel and Belladonna. Honestly, I don't know how much more of a glowing review I need to give of this DVD other than to say if you don't own My Ass is Haunted, you're doing yourself a great disservice.

this thread is like whoa

please continue fighting.

xpost that thing about my mom is a lie and you know it

Well, this took off in some other directions so I decided to hang back. I wasn't looking for people's "jealousy"/"sell-out" angles - though I did throw that in somewhere - so much as the question of whether blogs are still as much fun now that so many people are getting paid to write them. Are they starting to feel like "work product"?

I mean, the other thing that got me thinking about it is that to have a successful blog - whether you're paid by Microsoft of the Village Voice or whoever - you have to deliver a pretty consistent product. And I think people reach that conclusion a lot faster, and treat it more professionally, than they did say in the zine explosion in the '90s. You can't really "say whatever you want" or "write about anything" or you won't keep your readers. That applies to people who aren't on salary as bloggers. You're either trying to build up an audience - and then you've gotta keep 'em - or you honestly don't care and you're doing it for your own pleasure (except you're still publishing it, instead of writing in a journal ... ).

I'm overgeneralizing, but I don't believe anyone blogs "for the pleasure of it."

-- u saved me (wt...) (webmail), December 22nd, 2005 6:49 PM. (dubplatestyle) (link)

it takes a village, i know, i know.

this is total horseshit, btw, as many people blogged consistently before there was any sort of money in it. blogs just didn't crop up in the second quarter of 2004, you know.

I'm not talking about money.

I know that. But to take the motivational speaker riff, "You're selling them you."

“All that’s really exciting in music writing right now—in terms of style, content, delivery, form, function—is coming from either blogs or the interzone between blogs and ‘professionals.’ I’d be surprised if the landscape and its organisms didn’t look completely different in five or ten years” seems as if it is from your end and basically sums up what you seem to be getting at here much more succinctly.

And for the record, I agree with you on the editing bit. Blogging is less like professional criticism or fiction and more like Victorian letter writing.

A lot of magazines also specifically look for newcomers that they found on blogs. I don't mean the Fluxblogs or Wonkettes, but inexperienced, promising writers. I've been specifically directed to troll blogs for new writers myself. As more bloggers figure this out, some of them will act even more professional.

x-post

Forksclovetofu, about the landscape changing: that's the part I don't believe. Bloggers are either professional writers waiting to happen or they really are just some idiot talking about their cats and what they ate for breakfast. I don't see much sustainable middleground. Saying they have a new "style, content, delivery, form, function" thing just means that they write funny, but a lot of people have written funny or pretended they were on drugs, for newspapers and magazines, for many, many years.

if they were being edited they would just be "columnists" and then they wouldn't have the sexy "blog" thing to hang this shit on.

OTTM

Jess: Yeah, but what if they actually LIKE U2? Disapprove of what you'll say but I'll defend to the death, etc.
And there's nothing sexy about blogs from where I'm sitting. I still find it embarrassing when people refer to mine when we're in real world settings... unless they are similarly dork-oriented. It's like bragging about your comic collection.

or how you got beat up in high school.

I could see where that would lead to some unsavory writing, but there are times when that's a much more appropriate style. F'r instancethis astonishingly lame article from Monday's Times ("A user called Yams also added 'Yams yams yams yams yams.'") sure could've done with a bit more of that.

BTW - up above I should've said "some guy posting about his cat," not "some idiot" - I'm not trying to judge people's blogs or blogging in general.

Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.

'jumbo shrimp'