if Andrew Sullivan can raise 12 billion dollars for being wrong about basically everything...

[phantom power]

Winter Fundraising Extravaganza

I'll be honest here. The advertising model of sustaining this blog is, well, no longer sustainable. It worked pretty well from 2004-2008, ok from 2009-2011, and then last year basically started to fall apart completely. In order to continue doing this as my primary activity, I'm going to have to see this more of a user-supported activity then an ad-supported one. There are bills to pay.

I hate posts like this. I know it sounds like "give me money or the blog gets it." I don't think I'm entitled to earn money for my little hobby of shooting my mouth off on the internet. But if Andrew Sullivan can raise 12 billion dollars for being wrong about basically everything, then maybe the user-supported model is the way to go. I've been proved fucking right at least a couple of times, and that has to be worth something.

So consider a wee gift. Thanks for your generosity! And readers really have been very generous over the years.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2013/01/winter-fundraising-extravaganza.html

[hlthe2b]

1. Gee, is Atrios still around?

I haven't read his blog in many years... I liked him, but gawd, he never engaged any professionals to help him update/upgrade/expand his blog software, so unlike with the Josh Marshalls, Markos Moulitsas, and yes, David Allens of the world, I sort of lost interest...

[phantom power]

2. yep, he's still doing his thing...

Not sure how fancy a blog has to be. Long as it's readable, provides links, a comments facility (which I mostly ignore, personally), doesn't include flashing text and dancing hamsters, I'm good.

[Indykatie]

3. Sullivan Has One of the Best Blogs IMO

I don't agree with all of his positions but his wrting and features are both excellent. His blog and Josh Marchall's TPM are daily visits for me and I have contributed to both. Some folks won't give a dime to support anything on the web but I think we have a responsibility to support these web initiatives financially if we read them reguarly. That includes DU of course.

[Pisces]

4. Uhm. Sullivan was wrong about the Iraq war, which he has fully admitted too. And he raised 400k for

one of the best blogs on the internet. "Not to impugn your good work sir".

[frazzled]

5. He shouldn't have given up his day job

He's a trained economist with a Ph.D. and teaching experience. He could have maintained an academic career with political commentary on the side.

I remember when he decided to start a "blog" many years ago, when we were all just a small group posting on Bartcop (!) in the most informal way. I always thought it was a mistake to think one could—or even should—sustain a blog in which one had to provide daily and constant opinions. It was simply, in my opinion, replacing one kind of top-down editorial writing that we opposed in the "mainstream" media with another. I thought it missed the essential genius of the then-burgeoning Internet: that it could facilitate discussion among disparate individuals, removed in both geographical and social positions in real life but brought together electronically.

I also opposed the idea of someone being the "top dog" while all the little people posted responses in the "back" (accessible only through a link). It was a hierarchical structure I rejected (even though I was urged at certain points during that same era to start my own blog). Over the years (and it wasn't so many years), I stopped reading individual's blogs altogether: Duncan's, Digby's (and I had been friendly with these folk). I felt it became repetitive and a bit megalomaniacal.

That others have moved away and that revenues from ads have thus dropped does not surprise me. The era of the individual blog is over. Maybe Andrew Sullivan can make it work, though I doubt in the end if even he will.

PS: The kind of hyperbole that says Sullivan has raised "12 billion" and that he has been "wrong on everything" explains a lot why I stopped reading these people. Hyperbole just gets really boring and self-indulgent after a while.

[phantom power]

6. I like personal blogs. I think feed aggregators fill the other kind of niche.

[Chathamization]

7. Feel the same way

The problem I've had with blogs is that you're always at the whim of what the host talks about, and it can be difficult to have real conversations in the comments section (though some blogs are better than others). In order to join the conversation on equal ground, you have to start your own blog and then spend months/years getting traffic until you get noticed and finally get a voice. There also seems to be an enormous amount of energy in the blog world devoted to attacking or talking about other bloggers.

Web forums are much more democratic, but unfortunately don't seem to be as popular. I wonder if the decline in blog traffic to these sites is connected to people just spending time on Twitter/Facebook.