If you've been living on the planet Venus for the last couple of years then you probably can't touch a computer without melting it or you're made of rock and can't use a PC. Living on Venus is the only reasonable excuse for ignorance of the blog phenomenon. Okay, maybe if you're from an unspoiled primitive tribe you have an excuse, but it's a weak one.
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"Humanity is hip to corporate media and they want something different. Blogging fills that desire." |
Weblogs or Blogs are the publishing/broadcasting phenomenon that the progenitors of the World Wide Web predicted. The Internet's forefathers claimed that the web would level the fields of print and broadcasting so that even the little guy would have a voice. Taking into account the homogenized news, entertainment and information that we get from corporate entities, it's no wonder millions of surfers read the blogs of ordinary people. Humanity is hip to corporate media and they want something different. Blogging fills that desire.
A blog is a web log. A log is a kind of journal. A journal can be anything from a catalog of personal thoughts to a collection of news links and stories to a mix of both and more. One can create a group blog where several members are allowed to make entries. A blogger could write about certain subjects like computer hardware or software. Some folks blog about politics and some about culture. A blog can take almost any form and the number of unique topics is astounding.
Since blogs are so popular and SEO friendly, adult webmasters are exploiting them like crazy. There's been much discussion within our industry concerning the subject of defining a blog. I've seen other webmasters criticize newbie porn bloggers for creating sites that are image-heavy. These critics declare that a blog with mostly pictures isn't really a blog.
I beg to differ.
Picture blogging is done quite often on the non-adult web. Look at blogs like Fotothing, Image Shack and Flickr. If you want to look at examples of personal photo blogs, just check out the links to them on the Technorati Tags for photoblog page:
These picture-based sites operate the same as text-based blogs. They're updated often. They allow comments from surfers. They offer singular content. Photo blogs are in RSS/XML format so they may be pinged and aggregated.
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The main problem with non-adult picture blogs is that most of them aren't making money. The majority of non-adult pic bloggers don't care or don't know how to create a profitable website. Non adult bloggers don't have to worry about dollars because they use free software and free hosting. They might slap up an affiliate link to Amazon or join Google Ads but that's about as far as the average non-adult blogger will go in the effort to make money from a page.
The adult webmaster wants to make money. The adult webmaster pays for a domain, a hosting account and content. The adult webmaster sells the one product they know people will always buy. One webmaster sees a porn picture blog and calls it a glorified TGP. Another sees a text blog and thinks "Nice writing but how is that going to sell porn?"
There's nothing set in stone here. You want to make a photoblog? Go for it! You want to make a blog that contains nothing but your ranting and ravings? Knock yourself out! Go all the away and build a video blog if you want to. It's good enough for a site like Crooks and Liars. It's your money.
What you must keep in mind is how you display your text, images and videos on your blog. Are your ads visible at all times? Are the ads complimentary with your content? If you have a picblog, are you also including sales text in the captions? If you write a text blog, do your entries have a theme that is compatible with your sponsors? Most importantly, is your blog content compelling enough to keep surfers coming back? Whether you want a text blog, a photo blog or any kind of blog, it's the marketing that makes the money.
Ironically, blogging is the one web phenomenon where adult webmasters came late to the party. Non-pornographers have been blogging for almost ten years. Just the same, we caught the crest of the wave. Blogs are big and they're ripe for capitalization by adult webmasters.
Start a blog. Start small or start large. Whatever you do take charge!