I always feel guilty when I don't update my weblog regularly. Like when I was finishing my book and didn't have time to post, or this past week when I got the stomach flu and didn't feel like sitting at the computer. The guys at
Blogoriented have an ingenious solution to this problem. They're outsourcing blogging:
We are outsourcing blogs to China. Our general business model is a two tiered effort to hire Chinese citizens to write blogs en masse for us at a valued wage... These blogs will pop up in various areas of the net and appear to the unknowing reader to be written by your standard American. Our short term goal for these original blogs is to generate a steady stream of revenue through traditional blog advertising like google adwords... The long term goal is to generate a large untraceable astroturfing mechanism for launching of various products. When a vendor needs to promote a new product to the internet demographic we will be able to create a believable buzz across hundreds of ‘reputable’ blogs and countless message boards. We can offer a legitimacy to advertisers that doesen’t exist anywhere else. The second tier of our plan is a blog vacation service where our employees fill in for established bloggers who need to take a break from regular posting.
All this smells a lot like a hoax to me. It also smells like a hoax to the author of this
news.com article. If these Chinese bloggers have such a perfect command of English that they could effortlessly pass for "standard Americans," then they should blog as themselves. That would be more interesting than pretending to be American.
As for the blog vacation service, that's not a bad idea. I've thought about having guest bloggers step in when I don't have time to blog. Or I could invite readers to submit posts and pay a buck or two per post that I choose to put on the site (as a way to share the Google adsense revenue). Interesting thought.
Comments
You could try stockpiling stories in advance, albeit that they would not be up-to-date; you could post old hoaxes from the past, although you'd need some way to do this automatically.
Which raises the Ray Bradbury-esque possibility that, right now, you aren't a human being at all; you're just a computer set up to scan Google news with a large library of keywoards, posting stories on pre-programmed schedule, with an Eliza program generating all the 'user comments', including my own.
More seriously, there is always the worry that any stand-in for yourself might turn the audience off, and destroy your popularity. You'd need someone entertaining, obsessed with hoaxes, someone with spare time, someone who has transcended the useless burden of social life.
might be kind of difficult for your average Chinese citizen to have access to all the news/social issues that an American blogger would be blogging about.
also, i would think a bi-lingual Chinese citizen would have better opportunities.
Maybe I am wrong.
As far as smelling a hoax, this one smells like a dead badger. It's like they're not even trying to come up with a concept that would fool people. Anyone with three ounces of computer savvy would take one look at that and roll their eyes at the absurdity..
Of course, during the .com explosion, there were equally ridiculous concepts out there generating thousands of dollars in investor cash. Some people just don't know enough about computers. Wave something that sounds like what they've heard on TV, and they'll go for it.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forum/forum_comments/1934/
Specifically, I think the theory is that I was killed by the Loch Ness Monster in 2004 while vacationing in Scotland. I was then replaced by a replicant version of me.
Hairy, you do a fine version of me. But who would be you, while you were being me?
It's a joke, for goodness' sake.
Have you ever heard of satire?
By the way, how are your Bonsai kittens.
"Of course, during the .com explosion, there were equally ridiculous concepts out there generating thousands of dollars in investor cash."
THOUSANDS? Try MILLIONS. The human capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds. I got that from somewhere, but I don't remember where.
Sounds like something from Star Trek, eh?
Mind you, it's not a bad business model:)
We're happy to wait for your whirls of pissdom...er, pearls of wisdom. Oops....did I leave my mind in Pensylvania? Or was that my heart? Yeah, that's it, it's lying somewhere in that last campsite. D'ya think I should go back for it?
Btw, I know it's late but hope you feel better! 😊