http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/08/a-farewell-to-surfdom/

I am not quite sure why funding for political blogs would be different for funding from other sorts of blogs. Certainly questions of the partisan interests of sponsors, etc, would come into it, but in practice, in other mediums, the funding is the same no matter what is being presented – ie, on the ABC you get gardening shows and kids’ cartoons sitting alongside political analysis. Publishing companies put out political/partisan books alongside of more objective political analysis and fiction, recipe books, etc etc.

Perhaps because blogs are an individualistic medium they might tend to attract questions about partisan/political funding in a way that other more corporatised or communal mediums don’t. But certainly, I don’t on the face of it see why those specialised funding models you suggest on your website shouldn’t be good for both non-political blogs as well.

Lofty views from Keating Towers and dizzy summits of academia. Onwards to the commanding heights of teh economy, citoyens!

And as I always say Kimski, my work isn’t going to speak for itself, now is it??
:0)

In any case, academic refereeing is never as rigorous as the google-driven interrogations you get here.

As a reader I also like them because you can buy them online and download them immediately.

Yet building the collective will and social capital that grounds such publications prior to their take-off is not nothing. It takes exhaustive commitment, and the attenuated and somewhat atomised form of association characteristic of much collective blogging is thin soil for getting there.

I’m mainly interested in blogs as a fresh medium; I don’t care too much whether they focus on ‘public issues’, or what have you. Food blogs and humour blogs and music blogs and arts blogs and literature blogs are far more interesting to me. I think it’s far more important to see a proliferation of these general interest blogs, with a variety of funding models; and this will be the base from which to successfully build a ‘public issue’ blog.

As it happens I had thought the same, but had never mentioned it. You’d beat MUP and their ponderous ‘large-ideas-in-small-books’ hands down. Penguin are issuing old orange lookalikes at $9.95 now. Going back to their roots: affordable books for all. Any takers for LP in book form?

[Hey Lang Mack, we bought that book - excellent.] cheers

Ad Astra, judging by the disappearance of Club Troppo’s Missing Link, and a lot of what was said there about the time it took to put it together, I’d wager that Richard Farmer probably needs a fair bit of time to put his wrap up together, and he has less to choose from than someone trying to do something equivalent for the blogosphere. There are probably some viable options for aggregation and highlighting of blog content, though, which are less labour intensive.

I think Tim’s right about the need to pay for blogging. I’m certain that the mainstream media doesn’t get it, and I don’t think advertising or sponsorship is a viable option in Australia. But there is hope…

http://anonymouslefty.blogspot.com/2008/11/will-last-one-to-leave-please-turn-out.html