online publishing

People like pictures. When I started blogging over a decade ago, I didn't have pictures or images to use and I didn't want to break any copyright laws (a lot of bloggers, then and now, didn't care). Because of that, I bought a camera and started shooting pictures of just about everything everywhere I went in an age when cameras on phones weren't evolved out of the technological ooze just yet. Now, armed with a Flickr Pro account, I presently have 16,585 images at my disposal.

And it still isn't enough. And, frankly, there are sometimes better images out there than my own (hey, I'm getting better!). That's why images made available for use either through Creative Commons licensing or public domain are so worthwhile and why I've used the Creative Commons licensing - I give to the pool, I use from the pool with no worry - like the image to the right. I'm not female or blonde, but the 'Why?' seemed quite worthwhile for this aspect of the post. And through Flickr, the link code allows the image to be used while also allowing the user to see the original image. But how do you find those images on Flickr?

After reading 'Slates Layoffs signal flaws in web model', I was a bit disappointed in that they really didn't talk that much about flaws in a web model at all. Sure, they talked about Slate's providing of great content and the layoffs. They even spoke a little bit about Salon. They managed to even explain the some of the specifics of Slates troubles, but it boils down to what is in the last paragraph:

..."These are tough economic times, and Slate needs to reassess where to put its resources," Mr. Shafer said.

Well. We kind of knew that already, didn't we? It's not that there are flaws in the web model - it's that the web model is difficult, ever changing and we're (in case you haven't noticed) in a tough economic period where the overwhelming majority of readers are not spending money. And if they aren't spending money, it follows that advertising will become more competitive and perhaps more expensive for quality advertising because of it - but it also means that advertising budgets may eventually get trimmed a bit too. After all, the advertising of any company isn't designed to pay publishers - it's designed to sell products or services. It's not designed to be a big red button that says, "Buy Everything Here".

As Slate is quoted as saying in the article, '...profitability doesn't necessarily require a bigger audience.'¹ That, right there, is something that defies contemporary webvertising logic but is absolutely true. It's about demographics. It's about getting the right eyeballs attached to the right wallets to the right places so that the right advertisers get their revenue. The theory of quality over quantity is one that, personally, I wished more people subscribed to.