Monday, 3 January 2005
mamamusings sells out?
Well, not exactly. But I’m sure some of you will think so.
Along with a number of other bloggers whom I like and respect, I’ve decided to enter into an agreement with a company called Marqui, which makes content management software. I blog about their product once a week, and they pay me a not-insignificant amount per month for doing so.
They do not control what I say—I could, for example, complain bitterly about the product’s shortcomings, so long as I linked back to them. And I’m free to note clearly in the posts that it’s a sponsored post (which is why this post has a category of “sponsored,” and a funky box around it).
However, I wouldn’t have agreed to the gig if it wasn’t a product that I found interesting, and a business model that intrigued me. For those of us who put a lot of time and effort into creating content for our sites, it’s nice to find a way (beyond Google AdWords) to be compensated for that effort. The model that Marqui is trying out (with the guidance of Marc Canter) is one that I think has real potential. It’s an above-board way of building buzz, without (to my mind) compromising content. They’re not dictating what I write (although they are providing suggestions for content), and they’re not demanding that my site be overrun with advertising.
So, we’ll see how it goes.
