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Writers Find Blogging To Be a Stressful Method of Reporting
Andrew Feinberg points out a New York Times story about the stress put upon prolific bloggers to maintain a constant flow of content in order to satisfy both consumers and advertisers in the information age. When breaking a story first can generate thousands more page views and clicks, many bloggers are finding themselves chained to their computers, worrying that they'll miss something important if they step away. Quoting:
" 'I haven't died yet,' said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. 'At some point, I'll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen. This is not sustainable,' he said."
Reminds me of Maddox. I check his page almost everyday for updates and get angry every time he hasn't posted new content. I only abstain from complaining due to fear of having my email posted!
if he's made millions of dollars, can't he just move to a small island off the coast of Mexico and have young women make him ceviche, bring him beer, and blow him for the rest of his life?
I gained 30 lbs once, and I've since dropped the weight, but I have nothing to show for it. I wonder if we'll get an article here soon about how executives making millions of dollars are stressed out.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
I once wrote a rhyme about this. Maybe you'll like it: http://www.bigsmoke.us/bloggers-block/
Morality is usually taught by the immoral.
Seriously, does anyone get their 'news' from blogs? Granted they can be interesting and helpful, they are often written with no editing and read more like "On the Road" than The New York Times.
Congratulations on developing income through traffic but it pains me to see people use this as a way to stay informed.
If you never leave your basement you're not reporting, you're aggregating or spinning.
My work here is dung.
Bloggers need both better technologies and better business models so that people can make a decent income blogging. It's a decent career but there's just not enough money in it yet to make it worth the pain and stress. We need alternative business models to increase the value of the blogsphere. Anyone got ideas?
[_] Go hunting with Dick Cheney - problem solved!
[_] Dude! If you've gained 30 pounds, sustenance isn't your problem. More like "sustenance abuse."
[_] Get a bigger chair - it'll sustain your additional weight.
[_] Get up and go for a walk. There's a reason the dot-com boom had lots of dogs in offices - it forced people to get up and walk their dogs! This got them away from their computers for a bit, so that when they came back, they were refreshed, and more productive.
[_] Set your site up as Yahoo!'s "ugly sister" for when Microsoft is looking for more "sustenance".
[_] More typeing and less eating.
[_] Move to a real office instead of working from home - or LOCK THE FRIDGE!
[_] Profit from it - start a blog about how blogging makes you fat. Lots of fat people will then take up blogging, as their "excuse" for being fattarded wankers.
Could it be that blogging is not a solo sport?
Bloggers talk incessantly about blogging... News at 11:00!
I get a bit tired of people who complain about their job or life, yet never take the steps necessary to alleviate the cause of said complaints. It's your life. Take some responsibility for it. Exercise more. Take a well-needed vacation (and leave the damn computer at home)! Spend some quality time with family and friends. I'll bet that when you look back at your life, you won't regret spending a bit less time at the computer, staring at updating blogs.
I also tire of how certain media industries talk about themselves as relevant news... I see this happen in the mainstream media all the time (stories about the media), and I find it somewhat annoying. Blogging has the same sort of problem - many bloggers talk incessantly about blogging and other bloggers, since that's the topic they know best.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Close to 50% of the page space is ads. Very slow loading ads. And annoying javascript popups. Just start moving your mouse around and hover-triggered popups start going off like landmines.
How can people stand to go there on a regular basis?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
If you are a blogger, set your hours. Sure, you'll violate them once in a while (I'm posting from work on a Sunday...I'm in a crunch time in my business - it happens). But seriously, if you don't post for 14 hours a day, the world will not stop. Provided that you have people to do the shifts to keep the information flowing, people will not abandon the blog forever. Taco doesn't spend 20 hours a day posting dupes - he's hired people to do that.
This isn't really about blogging, it's about small business. Small, one man shops really are a drain on your life. You fear that if you close too early or open too late you'll miss that one big customer. Until you get big enough to spread the load, that will be the case.
A note for bloggers - you might want to move. There were two in that story - one in SF, one (I believe) in NY. Note: you're bloggers, nobody cares where you live and you can source from anywhere in the (US/NA/World). Based on the "all day and night at the keyboard" comments, these folks aren't getting their inside scoops from wandering the streets of the big technology cities. Might I suggest somewhere inexpensive, somewhere relaxing from which to blog. Make it within 100 miles of an airline hub if you do a lot of conferences. Office space in small towns is often $8/SF (per year) or less, and really good housing is actually affordable on 40k-50k/yr.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The greed behind thinking "I *must* make $100k+ to survive" is one of the many factors sending this industry down the toilet. Every blogger should want to make $100k. It's good for the internet economy and for the blogging community if bloggers make $100k and up. Doctors, Lawyers, CEO's and other professions make over $100k, and I don't see you saying "It's because those Lawyers make over $100k that the legal system is going down the toilet."
The more money you have coming in, the better off you'll be, it's that simple, and if you want to live cheap, then you probably wont be able to afford private school for your kids, and you might not be able to afford the best medical treatments or the best healthcare plan.
And let's be realistic, if you are single, most of the good women prefer a man who makes over $100k vs a man living in the middle of nowhere making $30k.
What kinda man do most dads tell their daughters to go for? The Lawyer, the Doctor, the CEO, the very sorta man who just happens to be making over $100k.
A number of professions live under the 'publish or perish' gun. University professors, freelance journalists, freelance photographers, ad copy writers, script writes etc.
Nothing to see here, move along....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You mean that gaining money through blogging means it has to be stressful like a real work ? really I'm shocked, I thought it was free money !
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Certainly you've never been to Mexico.
I never said chefs and I never said hookers. The exchange rate on personal relationship is way better in Mexico anyway.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Just one minor nit to pick:
Part of the problem with many people working from home is it "doesn't feel like work", so they slack off. They work in their kitchen instead of a dedicated room / home office. They use the same computer for work and fun. They slack off on their personal appearance. Etc. Etc.
Getting dressed instead of sitting in your undies is part of the mental preparation for "Now I'm going to work!" I don't know how many times, when I was working from home, people would call and assume that I had all this "free time". I'd usually let them talk for a minute or two, but if it went longer, I'd tell them to call me at night - I'm working and don't want to "lose the momentum | thought | zone | whatever".
They'd be miffed the first few times.
The first few paragraphs of this article are so melodramatic that you might be able to convince me it came from The Onion rather than the NY Times. Was the writer bored; felt like being a little dramatic? Did all the editors have the day off? Either way, nice job, NY Times, you've at least amused me.
Dear Slashdot Editors,
Please stop mangling my submissions. I did not submit to you the NYT article. I submitted the commentary to the NYT article which I wrote as a tech/public policy blogger reacting to the story. I find the way you guys now strip out submitters content and simply link to the "mainstream" article insulting and really makes me want to contribute to the discussions less and less. Why is my contribution less valuable than the NYT article? I think my commentary as an informed reader adds much to the discussion, and could have done quite a bit to improve the quality of comments here.
Is there a reason you no longer link to other people's submissions, only their mainstream media material?
I have been a Slashdot reader since 1998-1999. I read less and less. This is why. While I took the time to format, edit, and submit a story containing links to both the original NYT article and my own commentary you found it OK to strip out my entire submission and bury it in your worthless "firehose" and instead simply use me as a tip-off instead of a contributor to a community which I have been on for over ten years. Check my UID.
Is original (ie, not from "news sites") content no longer relevant on Slashdot? Hey Malda, Bates? Remember me? When did your site become a news aggregator instead of a place to discuss ideas, not just rehash articles from mainstream press? I don't feel like part of a community right now. I feel like I'm doing work just so someone else can take the credit. I spent a good amount of time writing that post that I linked you to, and you all but ignored it.
Why?
Andrew Feinberg
Angry Slashdot Veteran
So he can be unhappy and get fat working under someone else. Fuck that. This is a real job. He's making a living off of it and has 4 employees. I say get more employees to do the work for you.
Can I bum a sig?
I want my time to be worth the absolute maximum amount of money possible. I value my time, and I love my life, and I don't want to waste my time and my life making somebody else rich.
...but we diverge here.
I'm with you so far...
I want to make myself rich.
I want my time to be worth as much as possible not so I can be rich, but so I can live comfortably while selling as little of my time as possible because "I value my time... and I don't want to waste my time and my life".
Given the opportunity to work as much as I like at $2500/day (and, yes, I have worked at that rate, though not consistently), I would prefer to work 40 days/year and make $100k rather than 5 days/week every week to get the $650k or so that works out to. I can live more than comfortably on $100k, including plenty of room for saving for leaner times, so why waste my time and my life to build up a pile of cash that I have no actual use for?
If he is drawing millions in revenue (since millions is plural, and it is three years, we will presume that is at least 1 million per year), and he has only 4 employees, AND his office is in his home... he is doing something wrong if he is still stressed and in ill health.
First: four employees, if they are competent, should be enough to keep a blog going by themselves, relieving him of said stress. If not, he needs better people.
Second: if this is not parts of California or New York, he should be able to find those employees for an average of $50k each, making $200,000. Hire them right out of college; they will be ecstatic to be making that much.
Double that figure to cover things like office overhead and business expenses (he's in his HOME, and it is an INTERNET business!) and so on. Don't need very much in the way of benefits, either, in an office of 4 employees. That's $400,000.
That leaves $600,000 for him.
Okay, I have not figured in taxes and so on. But that should not make more of a difference than around 30% to 40% one way or another. I could live on an income of $360,000 a year. In fact I would probably be having a lot of fun.
And if I wasn't, I would hire a goddamned manager for $80,000 to $100,000 of that, and go play with my $260,000. Maybe invest in another company with my money and now completely SPARE time, and do the same all over again... $520,000 / year, and still no stress.
This guy needs a clue.
Physical inactivity and long hours at the computer have many physically unhealthy aspects.
Another aspect, unreported in mainstream press asfaik, is the prevalence of blood clots that long hours at a computer can create in people. This once was only associated with long airline flights. Now it is occurring in programmers and others who sit in front of a computer for long periods of time.
More information at Long hours at computers may cause blood clots.