February 22, 2005
Kottke Goes Prottke
We've been fans of Kottke since the early days of the blog revolution- long before Gothamist pulled itself out of the primordial muck. He's inspired us with his more-than-occasional awesomeness, and keyed us in to many great trends, happenings, and memes. And just think- all of that is from a part-time Kottke- imagine what we're going to get when he's doing his thing full time. So, to support his project, and repay some of the help he's given us, Gothamist will match our reader's donations up to a total of $500 (just put "Gothamist Reader" in the Paypal memo line).
More fun Kottke links: his other site, 0sil8, with the best parody of all time- Megway! Not satisfied yet? How about Kottke pictures on Flickr, including this disturbing gem?
|
Sorry to burst the bubble here, but, c'mon. Please. This is pretension to the extreme. This is emblematic of bloggers and the "blogosphere" [I despise the word.] taking themselves waaaaaay too seriously. I cringe at the notion of such a person/blog thinking of it- himself as a "public service" as such. Gain some perspective, people.
Pretension? More like genius if he makes enough money from it.
Give the guy some credit. He's got two big things going on in his life and he chose one over the other. At least he didn't choose the boring route in favor of keeping status quo. (Because the status quo is an illusion, anyone can get fired at anytime) Otherwise, his bank account balance is his problem.
I wouldn't do this personally, but that's because I don't fancy myself as an expert publisher. I hope he's got the skills to pull it off.
(and I think he's gonna have to give in on the advertising thing eventually...)
"I recently quit my web design gig and -- as of today -- will be working on kottke.org as my full-time job. And I need your help."
Is this a fudge loving joke? Is this guy serious? He quits his day job and now expects readers to fund his career by giving him donation? And he won't even take advertising because of of some Travis Bickle-eque logic "Advertising introduces a third party. In my experience, the third wheel of advertising often works to unbalance the relationship in favor of either the author or the readers (usually in favor of the author)."
Give us all a break! It's stuff like this that makes people hate bloggers to the extreme. The rest of us have to *GASP* work for a living and consider blogging a hobby at best. Kottke thinks he's so important that he will not only get people to donate to him to begin with but enough to replace a full time job? This is nuts. And frankly it won't work because even the biggest blog fans in the world enjoy the freedom of blogging; emphasis on "free".
Admirable in a white elephan sort of way. But absolutely insane otherwise. And not brilliant insane. Self-absorbed insane.
>>>Gothamist will match our reader's donations [to Kottke] up to a total of $500
Hey, how about me? I need money too at
www.forgotten-ny.com
How much money did Gothamist match for donations to tsunami victims? I'm all for a guy following his dreams and wish him a lot of luck, but Kottke isn't a charity case.
Well it is not like he is going to be a full time web comic artist. That is just nuts. There are only like five full time web comic artists that can pay their bills by doing it.
Actually I just want to add something so others can get some perspective. Even full-time writers for major magazines don't make enough money off of their full-time gigs to live. And those are real reporters.
The concept that one can support their life via blogging is simply nuts. And without ads? C'mon.
Someone have an intervention with Jason. He's not a charity case. And he's far from demanding public assistance. It's actually an insulting concept at it's core and makes me really look at Kottke in a whole new--and not very respectful--light.
i'll make two points here, and then stop, because i am disgusted with you people:
1. gothamist donated a month of advertising inventory as well as several hundred dollars to the tsunami disaster- total value, about $2000.
2. jason is not demanding charity- he's asking for readers who are interested in his product to donate money to support it. i've been reading his site daily for about 5 years. so have thousands of other people- i'm happy with the service, and i think at $30/year, it's a steal. i predict he'll easily raise the money from his loyal readers.
donate if you like, or don't- but really, attacking someone who is trying to pursue their dreams makes you seem pretty small to me.
Jake, get a grip. And please read your original post which reads "Gothamist will match our reader's donations" Donations? To a blogger who has willfully chosen to drop his dayjob to blog? How many of us reading this site can actually do that?
You might be dishusted with us, but his "dream" is laughable even if it succeeds. Because it simply can't based on simple economics. Nobody really wants to pay for anything online. And even when sites have ads--like Gothamist and related sites--the income simply does not exist to survive off of it.
If someone has the dream to sit on a toilet and squeeze out a gold bar, I support their dream fully. But I'm not going to dellude myself into believing that it simply will magically happen if enough people support him.
In the case of Kottke, he's entertaining to an extent and somewhat quirky, but why should I donate one dime to a man--who in today's crappy job market--decided to quit his real job to simply blog?
Jake, dreams are one thing. Dellusions are another. This Kottke donation thing is just dellusional and laughable.
If pro-blogs like Gothamist that actually provide information can't make enough to support a life, how does one expect a superflouous personal blog to do so?
Gothamist never paid the $30 they pledged for Mustaches for Kids, that's pretty low. I guess good luck to Kottke but I'm not subsidizing his frankly pretty boring blog. Quitting your job and throwing yourself on the mercy of the crowd is a combination of gutsy and zoomtarded. Let's see how it looks in six months.
yeah well, i'm dishusted too. talk about being cynical.
so let me ask this question: if one your favorite blogs goes professional, would you happily donate some money or just sit back, roll you eyes and say, "whatever. it's a big scam."
he's not asking EVERYONE to donate; just loyal readers. obviously, you're not donating; we get the point. let it go. besides, he's only doing this for 3 weeks; it's not an ongoing thing. it's just for a quick startup and that's all.
Actually superhero wannabe, one of the more insidious aspects of the blog world is the constant mutual cheerleading of each other. Sometimes it seems like a cult-like mentality to be honest.
The difference between the real world and the blog world is that in the real world, someone would come up to Jason and go "What the f--k are you doing?" In blog-world anything but glowing adoration is discouraged.
Comments are comments, and more people than me are speaking honestly about Kottke's desire for donations. If you're upset we're all not "falling in line" and cheerleading him along, sorry.
Sometimes honesty is brutal. And the idea that anyone should "donate" to a blogger who quit his dayjob is just hysterically crass.
Face facts. When an employed and somewhat well to do blogger consciously "quits" his day job and then asks for donations, people will roll their eyes and go "Whatchoo talkin' about..." Especially nowadays where people do as much as possible to stay employed.
Good luck to him. But don't prentend it's quite a delluded idea at best.
I view the "donation" as a subscription. I wouldn't pay a quarter for Salon, but I've read Kottke for years. Used his font from time to time. I support what he is doing. Just like I support local theater, local eateries, and local charities.
What's crass is busting the guy's ass for trying something different. I find that most of the time, commenters who display the "honesty" diaper, are really just pricks with an axe to grind. Self-righteous, anonymous, uber-pricks. But that's obvious, isn't it.
While I totally applaud taking a great leap of any kind, this sounds to me more like Stefan Sagmeister's taking a year without clients to pursue his own projects than it does like "going pro." Punditry is a bit of a dubious form of professionalism anyway, if that's what it is (is that was personal blogging is?).
And what, exactly, is Jason's "product"? (I read that term yesterday somewhere.) His links? His own commentary? The links are perhaps not unique enough to kottke.org--we can get them elsewhere at basically the same time also for free. So is it his writings? I'm not sure he provides all that much, quantity-wise, though that will likely change. If you contributed $30/year to NPR and $30/year to kottke.org, which would you say provided more unque material that you couldn't get elsewhere? Daring Fireball by the same token offers a kind of expertise that validates his asking price. Anyway, some musings.
Still, good luck to the man. I hope he can swing it. [my line breaks have been overridden, dang!]