what i'm not, part ii

read part i

Ask my closest personal friends, they'll tell you. I'm not contrarian by nature. It's a discipline I've acquired by dint of effort and practice, practice, practice.

Steve Rubel at the always intriguing Micropersuasion says there is no money in blogging. He points to this post at Qumana blog which analyzes the results of a recent survey of blogs' advertising earnings. It's the post at Qumana, not Rubel's insight, that gets on my contrarian nerve.

The problems begin pretty much immediately. Notice n=26. That's the sample size on which they based their opening bar graph, the one that illustrates the actual earnings per month. That sample size just doesn't git 'er done, y'all.

Okay, let's ignore the multiple errors in their survey research methodology and look at the insights themselves. A previous post about the same survey comes up with this remarkable insight: bloggers are not participating in advertising programs.

Well, that's news! I guess that's why they could only come up with about 30 people for their sample, enough to satisfy the Central Limit Theorem but that's about it.

Qumana blog's conclusion after much twisting in the wind over this sad state of affairs is: we need to make blog advertising easier.

WHAT!!!!????

Easier than one click sign-up for adsense via blogger? How's that?

Okay, look. I don't want to write another too-long post, so I'll just say it: Please stop afflicting me with advertisements on your blog. I don't mind the reading lists and the CD's you're listening to. I don't even mind the paypal panhandling that some people do; it's cool. But adsense... that's ridiculous. Especially when the ads are in the middle of a post. That's a good way to lose me as a reader.

I read blogs because I like it, not because I'm into shopping. I can go to amazon for that. I'm glad there's no money in blogging, it's a relief. There's writing in blogging and good writing too, check out the blogs on my roll. They're there because they're good, not because they're financially viable. There is a difference.

The more I sense you're trying to make money from me via your blog, the more likely I am to click, not on your adsense ads, but on the little red and white 'x' at the right side of my Firefox tabs.