Just a quick bit of housekeeping -
A few weeks ago I began work on the Tempus Fugit Buyer's Guide. It was pretty exciting as one big brand jumped right in, and I felt that it would offer a unique feature that would be beneficial for you the reader, and also for the brands themselves as they would have an entire page devoted to their brand and their products. The motivation was simple - the guide would be a service for the brand as well as the reader, and any income generated would help defray the expense of creating and running the blog. The brands would provide all of the content, and it was simply facts and figures, NO opinion or commentary. If enough brands would have participated, it might have even covered travel expenses to BaselWorld next year. That's right, some of us have to pay for that ourselves ; )
But what I have learned the hard way was (ironically enough), an echo of what I have been writing about all this time. Brands are, for the most part, stuck in the way that they do things, and while there is money for all sorts of crazy stuff, apparently there is not much for the people trying to provide honest coverage without demanding a fee for it. If I took even half of the brands up on the offer of paid advertorial? Let's just say I'd be flying business class from Boston to Zurich ; )
Call me naive.
So in a way, this failed experiment gave me some valuable insight about the pitfalls of combining a fee for service section with the main Tempus Fugit site.
Owing to all of this, and because I would hate to be someone to ignore my own advice and even worse to become the sort of outlet that I am continually protesting about, we are starting completely fresh as of today. No ads, no advertorial, no extra features for a fee. PERIOD.
Brand owners, managers and PR folks - send your press info.
Let's try to have an honest, open conversation. Because the last thing that I am going to do, is drink my own bathwater ; )
A few weeks ago I began work on the Tempus Fugit Buyer's Guide. It was pretty exciting as one big brand jumped right in, and I felt that it would offer a unique feature that would be beneficial for you the reader, and also for the brands themselves as they would have an entire page devoted to their brand and their products. The motivation was simple - the guide would be a service for the brand as well as the reader, and any income generated would help defray the expense of creating and running the blog. The brands would provide all of the content, and it was simply facts and figures, NO opinion or commentary. If enough brands would have participated, it might have even covered travel expenses to BaselWorld next year. That's right, some of us have to pay for that ourselves ; )
But what I have learned the hard way was (ironically enough), an echo of what I have been writing about all this time. Brands are, for the most part, stuck in the way that they do things, and while there is money for all sorts of crazy stuff, apparently there is not much for the people trying to provide honest coverage without demanding a fee for it. If I took even half of the brands up on the offer of paid advertorial? Let's just say I'd be flying business class from Boston to Zurich ; )
Call me naive.
So in a way, this failed experiment gave me some valuable insight about the pitfalls of combining a fee for service section with the main Tempus Fugit site.
Owing to all of this, and because I would hate to be someone to ignore my own advice and even worse to become the sort of outlet that I am continually protesting about, we are starting completely fresh as of today. No ads, no advertorial, no extra features for a fee. PERIOD.
Brand owners, managers and PR folks - send your press info.
Let's try to have an honest, open conversation. Because the last thing that I am going to do, is drink my own bathwater ; )
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