As mentioned on the previous post seeking input for the upgrade of LP’s site architecture, we’re going to be getting some professional web techies to give the thing a good tune up. We’re using the services of Graham Young of On Line Opinion fame’s web design folks, and we’ll also be swapping to their server. So with any luck we’ll be enjoying much faster loading speeds, and also a cleaner interface, and regular professional support will help us keep the blogging machine in good running order.
Because of the renovations, we will be off line for a bit on Monday and possibly Tuesday. So please bear with us as we work to provide you with a better blog.
Speaking of which, having made the decision to go pro in terms of tweaking and maintaining the site, we’ll be incurring some expense. We’re very grateful for the donations last time we moved servers, which covered the intial costs and bought us some months’ hosting, but if you’re feeling generous towards LP, we’d be deeply grateful for any contributions!
We are engaging in some revenue raising of another sort - when the site returns after its tune up, it will feature display ads. That’s something other blogs have been doing for a long time - Road to Surfdom comes to mind, and most US left and liberal blogs. We’ve gone down this path for three reasons.
First, as I’ve argued before, I think a lot of the potential audience for independent blogging in Australia got gobbled up by the MSM blogs in the lead up to the election - particularly the News ones. The blogosphere hadn’t reached a large enough critical mass before 07, and we kinda got pre-empted. I think that the independent blogosphere has a very important role to play, and I’m committed to maintaining and growing that role and avoiding co-optation.
But, secondly, we need to expand our reach. Short of mentions in the big media, that’s hard to do at present (though incidentally it would be great if LPers did a bit of evangelisation on our behalf and on behalf of political blogging generally to their friends). Part of the advertising deal we’ve entered into involves an effort to channel some of the money raised into raising the profile of the blogs who are participating, and I think that’s a worthy goal.
Finally, while writing and running a blog is fun, it’s also time consuming. I’ve made a number of choices to focus on writing at the expense of paid work and there comes a time when that’s no longer sustainable. I don’t regret that choice, and I happily take responsibility for it, but it’s neither possible to make a mint from paid freelance writing or continue to spend so much time on it without remuneration. So if I’m to continue devoting a fair chunk of my time to these intertubes, I need to make it part of my living. And I’d prefer to do that with LP rather than go do it for a commercial mainstream outfit.
Avoid advertisements at all costs, Mark.
Your great site will lose it’s luster.
Too poor to contribute financially personally, but fully in support of display ads if that’s what is necessary for you to keep up the good work, Mark.
I made a donation in response to this and I don’t mind advertisements either.
The way I figure it is that I get a better read out of this site than I do the local/state/national rag so you can have my money instead.
No, you whore your slice of bloggery out to the highest bidder without reservation or shame, MB. We’re all grown-ups. Honest advertising is no problem. It’s only advertorial that scuffs your luster, joe2: Jack Marxian boosterism of the kind that appears entirely unframed and innocent in the big bit in the blog’s middle.
BTW, I think now’s the time to audit Nabakov and PC for their suspicious spruiking of Laproaigh all these years. And Strocchers for his sustained virtuoso promotion of the miracle effects of Bali Mojo.
Any chance of diaries like Dailykos? The Australian blogosphere is missing them and they might work very well in our smaller market/audience where for most people having your own blog focused on Australian issues is never likely to get a decent sized audience.
On top of this it might be the most effective way of increasing your readership. I have read the blogosphere since the early days and I distincly remember when Dailykos started up diaries. It transformed the site to the natural centre of the left blogosphere. I am sure that it could do the same for Larvatus Prodeo. Sooner or later someone will do it and reap all the benefits and there might only be room for one site running diaries so its worth thinking about.
Lastly, is there any way to donate other than via PayPal? I checked the donate page but it just has a PayPal link. I don’t like dealing with them since they permanently blocked by account because I wasn’t sure I wanted to give them by DOB.
I am such a whinger, but you asked
Keep up the good work
Speaking as audience/participant, I for one *can* set up a blog of my own and I have the ability to read. So I’m cool without diaries or puritan advertising-free space.
Bring on the ads. I trust that they won’t end up being too invasive. I’ll even click through if it’s stuff I’m interested in.
Diaries: meh.
As for evangelisation, I’m working on my colleagues and also on my younger brother, who hopefully will spread the word with all his new uni buddies (he’s majoring in political economy and socio-legal studies, so he should meet some like-minded types). I can’t report much otherwise, although my partner has become a bit of a lurker.
swio, I’ve sent you an email with an alternate method to the address you’ve left in the comments field.
joe2, it’s not a step I’m particularly over the moon about but sadly lustre doesn’t pay the rent.
Klaus, not too invasive I don’t think - basically the same set up as on Ambit Gambit:
[link]
There’s no need to click through as with google ads - it’s display advertising so payment is by the number of page views, not people who click through hyperlinked text ads. No pop ups, and we’ve got a veto on any ads we don’t like.
I’ve got an open mind on the diaries idea, but we’ll need to have a collective think.
And thanks everyone for the encouragement (and for the dosh)!
Yes, those are the kinds of ads I assumed you meant, which is fine by me.
Will we keep the purple pictures? Hope so. They’re sort of - comfortable.
Half-serious suggestion - maybe rhe ads can be in purple?
Yes, and no!
There is one issue with advertising that has not been addressed: to what extent are ads going to be an additional burden for blog commenters with already marginal internet access (eg dial-up)? Some advertising formats may be worse than others on this front - ads with animation etc.
Also is it possible for you to add a subscription option via paypal? I’ve seen other sites do this; then people can commit to x dollars per month, rather than having to be reminded to top up the tip jar?
It’s a good move IMHO, absolutely nothing to apologise for - you gotta pay the bills, and there’s no shame at all in making some spare cash if you can, given how much energy this whole enterprise clearly requires.
I’m not sure what arrangement you’ve come to with Graham, but if it’s like OLO or youdecide2007/qlddecides, the ads in the banner don’t really cross your mind when you’re writing, because the agency takes care of it, right? Anyway, no one could accuse OLO of running advertorial material, or suffering from conflicts of interest when it comes to the copy. I think it’s proper to be aware of this stuff, but I don’t think you need to be too concerned.
It won’t affect my enjoyment of the blog, anyway, and it’s interesting from my point of view to see someone grasp the nettle in terms of making blogging sustainable.
RE diaries.
I strongly support the idea and would be keen to contribute a post now and then, but it may necessitate a full-time moderator and/or an administrator to give prominence to the best posts etc. The alternatives are (1) a free-for-all with legal disclaimers in place, or (2) an automated reader-voting system which pushes popular posts to the top of a list (TPM has something like this in place, I think).
You are quite right about the MSM co-opting bloggers’ space, but there is surely scope to win back that audience - MSM blogs suck!
I wonder if you LP guys could get any help from Bryan at Ozpolitics, whose blog feeds page is IMHO the best existing representation of Ozblogistan?
Klaus K,
If you do not want the ads you just need to get firefox with the adblock plug-in. Works 99% of the time for me.
I think it would be a big mistake to add blog diaries at this place — unless your goal is to make the site resemble yet another bad college-theater production of Marat/Sade, like 80% of the political blogosphere is already.
Never mind the fact that Kos and TPM are both pretty much permanent walking infringements on the “Chock Full o’ Nuts” trademark; too many individualized features like diaries make a blog feel massively overcrowded, hermetic, and narcissistic, which is the sort of permanent built-in danger of this medium against which a good blog must forever be on guard. Besides, the posts initiated by the LP collective already constitute a version of the “diary” feature.
One of the principal ‘design’ features that makes LP stand out in this field, is its inherently conversational nature. Most political blogs I’ve seen consist of a small set of bloviating blowhards each posting his half-informed monologue that got rejected from the local op-ed page, followed by an endless thread of people saying nothing at all to one another, and little to the blog of any more substance than just ‘agree,’ ‘disagree,’ ‘disagree, you c*nt,’ or ‘here’s my theory about the moons of Saturn.’ Unless the original poster is an interesting writer like Wretchard over at Belmont Club, the whole thing is a real bore, or worse, just another rehearsal at Angry Insomniacs Repertory Theatre. Ever try to read, say, the Huffington Post? (cue piano hook from ‘Werewolves of London.’)
LP at its best operates as a conversation, and usually a fairly charming one at that. (Sure, there are other conversational blogs, but I think they mostly derail themselves in either abuse or dry technical writing, and have little or no sense of conversation to be practiced as an art form.) Another part of that success, I think, is the sense of scale. There are always enough different commenters around here to keep things usually varied and lively, but not so many that it descends into faceless chaos. It’s a nice balance. But the main thing is that the blog is genuinely geared towards discussion, which involves actually meeting with and acknowledging and talking about another person’s point of view, rather than a monologue.
Besides, if you really want to improve the blog, someone should convince tigtog and Anna Winter to write more posts again.
“If you do not want the ads you just need to get firefox with the adblock plug-in. Works 99% of the time for me.”
This may be a viable solution, depending on the different set-ups of the users in question. (FWIW I already use both firefox and adblock, and I support the move to advertising.)
“Besides, if you really want to improve the blog, someone should convince tigtog and Anna Winter to write more posts again.”
Without wanting to debigrate anyone else’s contributions, hear hear!
But what about those of us who prefer LP to load slowly, giving us more time to savour our Laphroaig (a rich yet uncompromising single malt redolent with the flavours of Islay, truly the King of whiskies) and get slowly loaded too as we compose our thoughts and then comments?
Nabs,
So you reject Lagavulin? Surely this would have to be regarded as the Queen of Islay malts - slightly less of those rich Islay peats, but fuller of those subtle undertones that make a truly great Scotch.
Combined with a slightly matured Cohiba Sigolo III and sitting on a comfy (rattan of course) chair on a quiet balcony there are few better ways to spend 40 minutes to an hour in conversation.
I can see j_p_z’s point of view, but if not LP then surely another Aussie political blog will one day go towards the diaries model and thereby grab a heap of regular readers (as HuffPo and Kos undeniably have, whatever other criticisms you wanna level at them).
If I had the time, the money, and the Web design skills, I would do it myself! In fact, if Mark doesn’t want to do it, maybe I will give it a try. But I’d sooner see LP go that way.
I gather when it comes to scotch there’s no such thing as off-topic.
Balvenie 12yo Doublewood - the last 4 years (I think) in sherry oak. I wouldn’t even bother with an Islay comparison, that’s like chalk and admittedly very chalky cheese, but it’s very jolly nice.
Too sweet for me FDB - but I can see the attraction. Perhaps with a Romeo y Julieta Corona to pick up the sweeter edge.
Well yeah, it’s not a challenge. A good tool for converting whisky wusses to the One True Path though!
Conceded. Now, what was this thread about again?
It’s about the fact that Mark needs to combine blogging with earning dosh to keep him in scotch. When you think about it - there are synergies!
Wot Japerz sez.
Need lots of Google ads to get to the 40 year old Laphroaig. Target the 10 year old and work from there.
Well, having just run out of good single malt last night, today I purchased some Isle of Jura and a bottle of The Macallan, because I am a woman of Moods. I’ll probably get myself some Ardbeg in a few months (I have a slight preference for it over either Laphraoig or Lagavulin amongst the Islay malts, and I never say no to a Bruichladdich).
It’s 9:30 AM here in England, is that too early for a glass of Laphroaig?
I mean, it is a Friday which generally means that after work drinkies are shifted about 2-3 hours earlier. So if I start drinking now that would make it lunchtime drinks would it not?
Sorry, I should perhaps have mentioned Blogitariat too, as a worthy example of Oz blog amalgamation where you CAN create content, but I’ve never gotten into it for some reason, even though my old blog is listed. Err… who runs it again?
Didn’t whatever the Webdiary turned to have a user article section?
Still haven’t had my whisky yet and it’s pushing 11:30 AM. I yet may not be drinking until a so-called reasonable hour today. That is unless someone volunteers to write a set of notes for a discussion on stabilizer quantum error-correction codes for me? Anyone? Please? Pretty please?
If you wanted an online diary, why wouldn’t you just get a blog?
But blogs are so Web 1.9… I think the new codeword is mashup..
eg. the microsoft popfly beta, and numerous other projects..
Gandhi, you and Jacques Chester are thinking along similar lines. But yeah, if all you want is a diary, GYOB.
With your own blog you don’t get to piggyback on an established, real popular already blog. Duh.
Liam, swio, gandhi;
DailyKos is built on Scoop, which I have elsewhere categorised as a second-generation platform. Diaries are built into that approach.
These days I would suggest that a better starting point would be to build from Wordpress Mu. I bought a few domain names with that approach in mind.
But to keep things in context, it’s all about numbers. The potential membership for a US site is, what, 15 times larger than Australia? To get to DailyKos numbers you’d need pretty much every regular internet user in Australia. If you believe that’s possible I have a DailyBridge to sell you.
Sort of. What the diary feature includes as a concept is the ability to promote diaries to the high-traffic front page. Part blogging platform, part social network. Automattic — the cashed-up startup whose business is Wordpress — have recently bought some mob who will bring these features into Wordpress Mu.
Hooray. Web 2.0 catches up with Web 98.
Can you at least set up something I can access with Mosaic?
Nabs,
The real challenge would be to get Lynx to work.
>> “The real challenge would be to get Lynx to work”…
Now that’s funny.
Actually, it’s usually a mark of a very poorly constructed website if it doesn’t render content acceptably in Lynx. Semantic markup makes content usable in a wide range of viewing conditions.
Posted comments this morning (Wed 26th) to
* traffic congestion thread
* terrorist thread
they appeared on my screen in the threads, some hours ago, now aren’t there.
Moderated into oblivion?
Lost in cyberspace?
BTW, the “preview” window thingy wasn’t showing when I posted …
cheerio
You got caught in the spaminator, Ambigulous. If your comments don’t appear, it’s preferable to email us and let us know, as making repeated comments will unfortunately persuade the spaminator further that you’re spam! I’ve fished the comments out.