Bloggertisements

Being new to the wonderful world of blogging, I have been happily navigating my way throught the various blogs out there on the "Interweb," I believe you blogging pros call it. I was delighted to discover blogs from all over the world by people who want to share their hobbies and interests with others, or who want to share their writings with the world, or from those who just want to voice their innermost thoughts to a large and anonymous cybercommunity, more willing to do so, perhaps, in the knowledge that the anonymity this Interweb thingy provides works both ways. So I was astonished to discover during my online exploits a movement so dark, so insidious, that I fear the very mention of it in this blog will reap upon me heaps of scorn and ridicule, or at the very least, hateful words in the COMMENTS section of this post.

It seems that the marketing industry has yet again intruded upon a medium originally intended as a means of communication. First they took advantage of the U.S. Postal Service by inventing junk mail. And I'm sure Alexander Graham Bell would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that his invention of the telephone over a century ago would someday give rise to the telemarketing industry, complete with autodialers and caller ID blocks. And marketers were quick to capitalize on the invention of email, inundating as many mailboxes as they could with unsolicited messages (I bet the manufacturers of SPAM never thought the name of their product would one day make people shudder with revulsion - oh wait, people had been doing that long before email was invented). So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see the latest method media-savvy marketers have devised to make more money for themselves. Yes, people, I'm talking about Bloggertisements - blogs disguised as personal websites but whose messages are all devoted to selling their latest product or method to make more money online. Each post starts off innocuously enough with a personal anecdote about going to the zoo, or getting stuck in traffic. Then it steadily segues to the marketing pitch that is in some way related to the anecdote. "Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do." -- just don't trick me into visiting your blog to do it!

There are many creative, amusing, interesting, and just plain weird blogs out there. But that's what blogs are for. Blogs allow people to express themselves on a more intimate and personal level than ordinary websites can. I guess it was inevitable that blogs would become the latest means of marketing. And sure, those that maintain bloggertisements will argue that they have a right to do so. And, I grudgingly concede, I guess they do. But even though they fly in the face of the independent and irreverent nature of blogging, they will never defeat it.