So, I started running Six Apart Adify ads on this blog when they announced the Journalist Bailout Program. I didn't need the software, but I signed up for the ads.  This blog has about 600 visitors a day to the site, plus newsreader traffic, and a fairly decent Alexa rank, so I wanted to see what the Adify ads would get me.

Well, after three months, I was able to buy these earrings and have some other money left over.  Kind of the same rate of return as selling jam, maybe a whole lot less.

 It gives new meaning to the idea journalism jobs are gone, because most of these poor schmoes won't make enough money to buy socks, let along groceries or mortgage/rent.

But the earrings are gorgeous, aren't they?

Loic said we needed search by authority and now we have it in the new twitority. Search on topic and sort the results by number of subscribers.

The wisdom of the crowds is always right? Marketers rule, correct?

I know I am a certified troublemaker because I have NO INTEREST in checking tweets again followers and popularity. For mass market concensus, I have google, yahoo! buzz and the top tech bloggers, who circle one another relentlessly with  minute variations on the same ideas (for the most part).

Folks, I want to find the edge cases. I want to read the fringe dwellers, the outliers, the folks who think different, not the same. I want the Ezra Kleins before they go big, the Corvida's before chasing fame hit. I want the bloggers who influence the influencers and the people who make the look at things afresh.

I am glad Loic got what he wants so fast, and I am sure I will visit twitority again, but I want something different--and a helluva lot more interesting.

I seem destined to have back and forth discussions with Steve Hodson, who picked up something I wrote yesterday about becoming more engaged with twitter and friendfeed than I have been. Steve's a really eloquent, persuasive writer, and I was engaged in reading the piece when I got to this statement that just stopped me:
"While blogging has been heralded as the new news medium there are those of the early adopter crowd who have used blogging as a way for them to have conversations but blogging was never meant to be the end point where they would stay. In the meantime though they attracted the most attention and as a result those of us that wanted to make blogging a career had to work even harder to get noticed."

So, did Steve just say the following:

• People who started blogging a few years ago (2003 for me) are making it hard for people like Steve to get noticed?
• Non-professional bloggers (like me) should get out of the way of people who want to be professional bloggers (like Steve?)
• and, finally
• Those old folks in the early adopter crowd didn't really have the committment to keep blogging, unlike Steve who is called to the vocation so deeply he wants to make his living from it?

Say it ain't so, you of short vision and big hubris, who make lots of silly and incorrect assertions here.

• First of all dude, what is a "professional" blogger? Someone who wants to live on the AdSense pennies they collect? Someone who starts a blog publishing network?
• Second, you're bitching because there are people who started blogging before you who get in the way of your getting noticed? Bah!  Blogging is a  cream rises to the top process, not a who's the best looking dude of the three left on the desert island. Scarcity does not relate to quality, face life and take a deep breath. (Your friend Corvida is a great example of that--she's super talented and now widely read--and when did she start, six months ago?)
• You imply that the writing that non "professional" bloggers do just makes noise, and you say tha FF and twitter make it  easier for "professional" bloggers to rise above the noise because those loud fools just go over there. Steve, this sounds alot like the "I belong to a special priesthood and you stay away from my clubhouse" that old time journalists did  and as such it is utter bullshit.

Summary of what Susan thinks:

• Steve is a smart guy with good ideas whose blog I enjoy.
• This particular post is full of bull hooey and mistaken assertions.