I got a lot of questions about this: what happened last year, how do you see things. where do we go from here?
There are a few things that happened in the last 12 months worth mentioning:
- Some bloggers realized I am not a fool who wishes death on them (as the song goes), but someone who is concerned about the whole ecosystem. And they realized this when they saw some bloggers crash and burn in their own terms.
- Two of the agencies handling blogger campaigns went down. Not bankrupt, but word got around about their shoddy practices and bloggers and companies stopped working with them. It’s a bad idea not to deliver results and just be happy the blogosphere is growing and there are money to be made. It’s also a bad idea not to pay bloggers for campaigns and spend the money on other projects. Good luck to them!
- Some bloggers crashed and burned due to personal greed and lack of results. Some of them ignored all the warnings and all the friendly advices from friends and foes and did what they thought was best. One of them went down in less than 6 months, slashed his prices to 1/4 and still has problems finding clients, despite his clean brand and open doors. With other was just a question of time. Keep ignoring the readers, they said. Just blow the client, they said.
- Some still refuse to understand that nobody benefits from a weak blogosphere and they see and pursue only short term goals. I saw red when a fashion blogger declared to a news site that she does not do a lot of online shopping and she does not believe in online payments and making money online. Others took on campaigns knowing they were not fit do to deliver results, just for the money, and months later found themselves cock in hand and no campaigns.
- Some learned nothing from history. It’s not hard to get on top and to conquer a lot of countries, it’s hard to hold your ground when you achieved a position closed to the top.
The problem is the same as last year, as two years ago, as 2007: way too few bloggers to run a decent campaign. I do want 10 bloggers having my traffic or close by in order to be able to run a big campaign. I do want 10 niche blogs in every big niche. I do want that and more but the current status quo will remain as long as people do not take blogging seriously.
Well, it is perfectly normal to want a healthy environment to conduct your business in. But as every other aspect of Romania’s life, blogging isn’t healthy as you said, we are still raw. Unrefined.
There are too many egos, and too many “perfect writers” for us to really have a healthy ecosystem.
And I find it funny that even though your blog, i am referring to this one, does a nice job on maintaing an eye on Romanian blogosphere, it doesn’t get too many comments. This would be the perfect place to start a conversation. But still, no comments. Could it be the fact that it is written în English, and we are afraid of posting in other language than our native tongue?
On the other hand, ironically, your other blog has lots of comments, seldom on the subject.