Inspiration

The Blogit idea is rooted in many Blogosphere conversations, some of which appear here.

Andrew Sullivan, A Blogger Manifesto: "Most non-blogger web journalism is still a little like television in the 1950s...[Blogging] is the first journalistic model that actually harnesses rather than merely exploits the true democratic nature of the web. It's a new medium finally finding a unique voice." "How would this ever make money?...In 2001, $27,000 came into my site via donations."

Anita Jensen: "I spend much much more than $36 a year on magazines and I have absolutely no opposition to doing so electronically if it can be made reasonably commensurate with my habits and reasonably hassle-free."

Arnold Kling: "...payment mechanisms that reward collections of bloggers hold more promise for the long run." "If someone were particularly efficient at [digesting information], we might appoint that person to assimilate and filter a large quantity of information."  The Club vs. the Silo: "While I would not pay to subscribe to an individual online journal, I might be willing to pay to join a club that gives me access to a variety of journals." Blogs in the Distribution System: "Somebody has to figure out how to get money to flow to the reporter in Pakistan, the musician, and [the] weblogs...Greater diversity of culture likely would be an outcome."

Bill Quick: "...marketing syndicates of blogs to advertisers, micro-payments that actually work... This is the only sort of writing I do that I *don't* get paid for. And I'd like to get paid, whether other people want to do it for luv or not."

Clay Shirky, The Case Against Micropayments: "...users want predictable and simple pricing...Micropayments...waste the users' mental effort...by creating many tiny, unpredictable transactions..." "Aggregation [is] the 'Disneyland' pricing model - entrance to the park costs money, and all the rides are free. Likewise, the newspaper has a single cost, that, once paid, gives the user free access to all the stories...As the newspaper example demonstrates, aggregation and subscription can work together."

Dan Rosenbaum, Making a Buck on 'Blogging: "[Blogging could be] an excellent way for professional news gatherers to distribute information to paying clients. I know a ton of un- and semi-employed [journalists] all over the world [who could be] filing real news for pay." A Business Model for the Paid Online World: "I hate the idea of being nickel and dimed...I hate micropayments." "What about...a Publisher's Clearing House kind of site, where you'd pick from a paid list of content providers and pay the syndicator once."

Dave Copeland: "Right now I'm doing this for fun, but I've been talking with some very smart people about how we could be doing this for a living."

David Wertheimer, When you make me pay, I'll pay: "Apologies if this sounds callous, but I will not voluntarily give money to a self-published, noncommercial Web site...Why isn't there a weblog network that charges one value for multiple sites?"

Doc Searls: "For journalists who blog for a living...I believe selling directly to readers — the public broadcasting model, roughly — offers those readers a far more respectful exchange than any form of advertising makes possible." Myster: "Why not set up a micropayment system for everything on TV, making TV a completely a la carte paid medium? [One reason:] the Broadcast Mentality can't imagine making Big Money doing anything but selling advertising." Tip Jars

Ed Cone, Will Blog for Food: "Many [existing] blogs...are in some way...advertisements for their authors." "Me, I would blog for bucks tomorrow...I would blog for money if there was a way to do it without changing the content or style of my work--I wouldn't subject readers to annoying and disruptive ads, but I would accept sponsorship from the right people...Publishing is how I feed my family. The Web, and weblogs, are distribution channels for what I write."

Eric Olsen: "The vast majority of 'full-time' bloggers would love to make it a 'job'." Important Bloggy Thoughts: "We still have to figure out how to make money DIRECTLY from blogging."

Glenn Reynolds: "It might well be possible to knit together a network of webloggers...under a framework that allowed for...reputation-rating, and that paid based on the number of pageviews and the ratings that each story received...With greater reach and lower costs than a traditional newspaper, it might bring something new and competitive to the news business."

Jeff Jarvis: "[Bill Quick and I were] wracking our brains to find some way to make this wonderful blog thing pay."

Jenny Levine: "What about an AP or Reuters made up of bloggers. Newspapers could subscribe to the service and pick up stories, and so could libraries...What about the library paying for a subscription to an online serial that makes it available to residents. Abstracts are available to everyone, but if your barcode number is entered...you see the full story."

Joanne Jacobs: "Natalie Solent describes what I agree would be the ideal system for compensating bloggers -- micropayments per read. If only someone would just invent it, please...Virginia Postrel says micro-payments won' t happen [and] links to an Arnold Kling essay suggesting readers might pay to access a 'club' with original work by affiliated bloggers."

Ken Layne: "When it comes to making money, it's best to leave out the likes of me and [Matt Welch]. We'll be there with sweat and labor and writing once the operation is safe for money-making."

Matt Welch: "...things are developing very fast in this "space"...helping bloggers make money for themselves)." Go Publish Yourself: "Three thousand individual people are reading me every day, and some of them give me money for it."

Meg Hourihan : "...we can organize ourselves into these [blogging networks] so that we can add value *and* make some money." "I find when I'm paid to write...the quality of the work I produce is vastly superior -- not because I have more space to say something necessarily, but because I have more time to think and write more deeply." Blogging for Dollars : "Until we create a financial structure to enable the creation and maintenance of professional blogs, we won't see the best, next generation of Weblogs." What We're Doing When We Blog: a blog is "[a] collection of posts...short, informal, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal...with the freshest information at the top."

Miguel Cardoso: "Blogs will only come into their own when...bloggers are able to make a living from their work...why shouldn't they be rewarded -- as writers and artists are -- for the joy and interest they bring?"

Natalie Solent: "Giving a donation is slightly stressful...I would like to see a way in which one could charge a tiny, really tiny, sum for each pageview, and do it in a way that would cost the viewer no effort."

Paul Bausch: "I wonder if more value will be found in aggregating content from hundreds of weblogs (instead of a select chosen few), and then paying those who participate in the system. The more valuable content that the aggregator can pass along, the more money is given to the originators of that content."

Richard Bennett: "Micropayments, syndication, and microcontent management... have the potential to pay back more than subsidized blogging." Follow-up: "Here's my model of pay-for-blog: you pay for the blogs you like."

Virginia Postrel: "[Arnold Kling's online journal club] is an alternative model that might work."