twopointouch

This post is sponsored by ReviewMe

This is an experiment. How do those words at the top make me feel? I am 40, have been a journalist for seven years, a website author for eight years, but a blogger for less than six months. This is how it has worked when it came to professional magazine reviews - I’ve been lucky, having entered the profession at the editor position and therefore having had a lot of control over what I did.

(a) I chose the stuff I wanted to review. I reviewed it positively or negatively as I saw fit. If it’s rubbish, I call it.

(b) I have never written an advertorial that did not appear clearly marked as advertorial. But I have written advertorials.

(c) Journalists get a lot of perks. Lunches, free drinks, foreign trips. It compensates for proper pay. UK journalists do not get paid well.

So ReviewMe - a new service that pays hacks like me to review ’stuff’ to order. You can be positive or negative, and have to declare your financial interest. How do I feel about it?

Well, I guess it comes down to the reasons why you want to blog. I set up this blog as a personal database. After a while, I realised it had an audience. I started to find people and have conversations with people as a consequence. The blog started to become a personal network, a soapbox and an information base for my own purposes. I’m also trying to use it for career progression. It’s my online CV, to a much greater degree than linkedin and so forth can provide. So those words at the top, “This review is sponsored by ReviewMe”…

How does ReviewMe affect that? I only really have meanderings about that.

• My readers matter more to me than the money. I haven’t carried adverts for a while, but decided that was a bit silly and am hoping to have some soon. None of my readers would stop reading the publications or blogs they like on that basis, I think.
• It makes this blog more like a publication but is it less of a personal conversation? That’s the bit I find pretty hard. I’m not really here for the money, but if I can get some… fuck it. Nothing will change in that regard, I can’t do it.
• If I get feedback that this is shit, and “I thought you were with us, Ian, but now I realise that you’re just a stooge for the MAN”, then I will stop.
• When I read a magazine I like, I normally flick past the ads to the articles I like. It doesn’t stop me liking the magazine. Can a blog be like that?

Sometimes, as a magazine writer, the ad-guy or girl comes up to you and says “I’d really appreciate it if you talked about PRODUCTX next issue. It could really help us.”

I say, “I will if it’s interesting.” That remains my policy.