{"id":2537,"date":"2011-04-13T09:51:35","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T15:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2011-04-13T15:56:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T21:56:33","slug":"blogging-why-build-somone-elses-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2537","title":{"rendered":"Blogging: Why Build Somone Else&#8217;s Brand?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is some political name-calling in his post, but <a href=\"http:\/\/theothermccain.com\/2011\/04\/12\/this-reminds-me-of-stalingrad\/\">Stacy McCain does make one valid point about blogging.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you are going to work for free, why build someone else&#8217;s reputation rather than your own?<\/p>\n<p>I know two people who were writing for <em>The Huffington Post<\/em>\u2014the site that owner Arianna Huffington has now sold for millions of dollars. As the man said, <em>they got played, she got paid. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.forbes.com\/jeffbercovici\/2011\/04\/12\/aol-arianna-huffington-hit-with-class-action-suit\/\">Now some of them are suing<\/a>. But as they have no contracts promising payment, what are their chances?<\/p>\n<p>Another colleague at the university started blogging at <a href=\"http:\/\/dailykos.com\/\">Daily Kos<\/a>. So big deal, you have a &#8220;diary&#8221; buried deep in the site. You are building <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Markos_Moulitsas\">Markos Moulitsas&#8217; <\/a>reputation, not your own. Your &#8220;diary&#8221; exists only at his whim\u2014regardless of what the site says about &#8220;community.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yes, I did have a blog at BeliefNet at one time\u2014it was the feed from this one\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=850\">but they purged it<\/a> for, apparently, religious incorrectness. I would not go back, nor to the rival religion portal, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/\">Patheos<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you are a blogger\u2014in love with the sound of your own typing\u2014independence is the main fringe benefit.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: Law-blogger Eugene Volokh says (tongue in cheek) that <a href=\"http:\/\/volokh.com\/2011\/04\/12\/commenters-please-dont-sue-us-for-shamelessly-exploiting-you\/\">we are all exploiting commenters.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>UPDATE 2: Is the Huffington business mode<a href=\"http:\/\/zunguzungu.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/05\/why-arianna-huffington-is-bill-kellers-somali-pirate\/\">l really piracy?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is some political name-calling in his post, but Stacy McCain does make one valid point about blogging. If you are going to work for free, why build someone else&#8217;s reputation rather than your own? I know two people who were writing for The Huffington Post\u2014the site that owner Arianna Huffington has now sold for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,12],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blogging","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-EV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1085,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1085","url_meta":{"origin":2537,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry in Traffic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 So M. and I are in traffic behind a Cadillac SRX with the vanity license plate \"S-N-M\" and a custom-painted \"Sanguine Addiction\" above the license-plate holder. That's a Colorado metal band, but the driver did not look like any of the musicians. Here is what we were arguing about:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":970,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=970","url_meta":{"origin":2537,"position":1},"title":"Not Getting the Whole Blogging Concept","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Some people just do not get the concept -- in this case, the concept of blogging.When you write a blog, you either link to a web site you have visited (blog = web log, remember) and you comment on it. Even a Glenn Reynolds-ish \"Heh\" counts as a comment.Or you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0415969115","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3178,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3178","url_meta":{"origin":2537,"position":2},"title":"The Wild Hunt Gets Some Respect","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It is nice to see that Jason Pitzl-Waters' The Wild Hunt blog has gotten a major shout-out at Get Religion, the site for people who wonder why the mainstream media handles religion so ignorantly. I predict that as Pagan traditions become more visible, our activities will be covered by the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":658,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=658","url_meta":{"origin":2537,"position":3},"title":"A hare's breath escape\u2022 I\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A hare's breath escape\u2022 I just finished indexing Her Hidden Children, much helped by the fact that I could find search terms by letting Adobe Acrobat search PDF files of all chapters. But before you index a book, you need to strategize about the book's purpose as well as the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":969,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=969","url_meta":{"origin":2537,"position":4},"title":"In lieu of doing actual work &#8230;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I updated the book review page of my personal web site.","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":882,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=882","url_meta":{"origin":2537,"position":5},"title":"Gallimaufry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 Now this is a poorly written headline.\u00b6 As John Leo would explain in \"Thoughts on Good Writing\", the headline writer needs to \"work to avoid the dead idioms that we all seem to carry in our heads.\" \u00b6 Weirdest search string to bring someone here in the past month:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}