Giving Bloggers Free Gifts
I like that more writers are being given a voice. Or rewarded for their voice and writing. Big media is getting wise to the Internet world–took some time. But now they see how powerful these voices are and can become when they’re free in a sense to write what they want. If anything, I think blogging and the ease of setting up a blog like this, has broken down the wall a bit that is intimidation, or what holds us back is this odd idea that this or that is too difficult to setup or too complicated. I think there’s always has been and will be a famed local writer or a product made by a mom in southern Arizona–but the Internet gives that person more of a voice for all their hard work, which is nice. Then there’s the question of how much they can grease their palms. From the Wall Street Journal:
“Even Ms. Marie of Joy Unexpected says she is re-evaluating how she handles gifts. “I’ve realized that I’m inundated with free stuff,” she says. “I don’t want my content to turn into advertising.”
TV critics have called “The New Adventures of Old Christine” one of the decade’s funniest comedies. But when CBS recently wanted to create buzz for the show, critics weren’t the targets of the publicity campaign.
Neither were newspaper feature writers, whom a publicist for the show’s star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, declared weren’t “worth her time.”
The so-called “mommy bloggers” were another matter. Warner Bros., the studio that produces the show for CBS, identified 12 blogs about motherhood, a key theme in “Old Christine,” and invited the writers to spend the day on the set. The bloggers got free DVDs, watched a rehearsal and made videos with Ms. Louis-Dreyfus and other cast members to post on their sites. “It was totally rad,” says Yvonne Marie, the publisher of a Web log called Joy Unexpected.”