Saturday, October 22, 2005
The art of becoming a Hit Slut
I figured I would share a little known secret about many of the bloggers in the blogosphere that folks may not know about. While some bloggers are ethical and post in order to give back to the community, others have different motives. Many are simply blogging in order to become hit sluts.
Bet you didn't know that the vast majority of hit slut bloggers hang out on a blogging site known as ITToolbox? On this site you will find respected bloggers such as Dave Taylor who has his own blog but tends to also post here. Bet you don't know the reason why? You will notice at the bottom of all his postings a disclaimer regarding republished with permission. Is it because ITToolbox will claim all intellectual property of folks who blog there? Is it because the motive for blogging here is to draw traffic to a blog one personally controls?
Other popular bloggers here such as SecurityMonkey talk about ethics yet choose to remain anonymous. Why would someone hide their identity?
Other bloggers such as George Eby Mathew, Sumit Malhotra, Indranil Mukherjee, Sandilya Venkatesh all seem to have positive things to say about outsourcing but never seemed to present a balanced perspective on the topic. Have you ever seem their outsourcing posts even for a second acknowledge that outsourcing can fail? Have you ever seen them quote any statistics on the number of failed outsourcing projects? Have you even seen them provide insight into best practices one what to do when outsourcing fails and a Fortune enterprise wants to bring it back inhouse. I believe that these individuals know more than they are willing to share on this subject but have other motivations in not engaging the community in honest dialog on this topic.
The primary reason for all of the conversations here is not because of anything said to date, but rather the fact that none of these folks ever mention that they are paid hit sluts. Don't get me wrong, its ok to be paid by ITToolbox to blog, but wouldn't ethics dictate that this occurs? Bet you didn't know that ITToolbox doesn't pay per article or similar practices used within the media. They compensate bloggers (aka authors) based solely on the amount of traffic they generate, ultimately turning them into hit sluts.
Sadly, I used to be a hit slut myself and loved the fact that I got a check from ITToolbox every month for $200 in which I used to donate to my favorite charities. But an awakening occured. I was the number two blogger on ITToolbox in June but never received the final check.
When I first started blogging with ITToolbox, I remember emailing Tim Ribich of ITToolbox asking him if he would contribute my payments for October through January directly to specified charities so that I could ensure that 100% of the contribution made it to a worthy cause such that Uncle Sam didn't require me to deduct income taxes from it. He indicated this would be taken care of. Over the next couple of months, I learned that this wasn't taken care of and started receiving abstract email messages.
When I blogged on this particular issue, I also noticed that my blog postings would mysteriously be moderated. Moderation is OK in situations where folks are breaking the law, but I was simply encouraging others to contribute to charity and talking about my own blogging experiences. This awakening caused me to realize that I too was a hit slut and needed to not only practice ethical blogging but encourage others to do so as well. Anyway, I suspect that if any ITToolbox bloggers even consider for a second responding to this blog, their own postings too will become moderated.
The only thing I can hope for is that readers of ITToolbox will start demanding ethical practices not only of the bloggers their but the blog host as well. Readers of blogs have a choice and will leave it up to society to conclude what is right and what is wrong...
| | View blog reactionsBet you didn't know that the vast majority of hit slut bloggers hang out on a blogging site known as ITToolbox? On this site you will find respected bloggers such as Dave Taylor who has his own blog but tends to also post here. Bet you don't know the reason why? You will notice at the bottom of all his postings a disclaimer regarding republished with permission. Is it because ITToolbox will claim all intellectual property of folks who blog there? Is it because the motive for blogging here is to draw traffic to a blog one personally controls?
Other popular bloggers here such as SecurityMonkey talk about ethics yet choose to remain anonymous. Why would someone hide their identity?
Other bloggers such as George Eby Mathew, Sumit Malhotra, Indranil Mukherjee, Sandilya Venkatesh all seem to have positive things to say about outsourcing but never seemed to present a balanced perspective on the topic. Have you ever seem their outsourcing posts even for a second acknowledge that outsourcing can fail? Have you ever seen them quote any statistics on the number of failed outsourcing projects? Have you even seen them provide insight into best practices one what to do when outsourcing fails and a Fortune enterprise wants to bring it back inhouse. I believe that these individuals know more than they are willing to share on this subject but have other motivations in not engaging the community in honest dialog on this topic.
The primary reason for all of the conversations here is not because of anything said to date, but rather the fact that none of these folks ever mention that they are paid hit sluts. Don't get me wrong, its ok to be paid by ITToolbox to blog, but wouldn't ethics dictate that this occurs? Bet you didn't know that ITToolbox doesn't pay per article or similar practices used within the media. They compensate bloggers (aka authors) based solely on the amount of traffic they generate, ultimately turning them into hit sluts.
Sadly, I used to be a hit slut myself and loved the fact that I got a check from ITToolbox every month for $200 in which I used to donate to my favorite charities. But an awakening occured. I was the number two blogger on ITToolbox in June but never received the final check.
When I first started blogging with ITToolbox, I remember emailing Tim Ribich of ITToolbox asking him if he would contribute my payments for October through January directly to specified charities so that I could ensure that 100% of the contribution made it to a worthy cause such that Uncle Sam didn't require me to deduct income taxes from it. He indicated this would be taken care of. Over the next couple of months, I learned that this wasn't taken care of and started receiving abstract email messages.
When I blogged on this particular issue, I also noticed that my blog postings would mysteriously be moderated. Moderation is OK in situations where folks are breaking the law, but I was simply encouraging others to contribute to charity and talking about my own blogging experiences. This awakening caused me to realize that I too was a hit slut and needed to not only practice ethical blogging but encourage others to do so as well. Anyway, I suspect that if any ITToolbox bloggers even consider for a second responding to this blog, their own postings too will become moderated.
The only thing I can hope for is that readers of ITToolbox will start demanding ethical practices not only of the bloggers their but the blog host as well. Readers of blogs have a choice and will leave it up to society to conclude what is right and what is wrong...
