I've been wondering if its time to set one of those oh-so-fun blog group writing projects.But how? I checked Blogger and WordPress online help, and there was nothing. So in the immortal words of a certain shoe making company, I guess the secret is to just do it.
And in this case not just once, but twice!
1) Celebrate World Rivers Day
This is one for your diaries: on 27th September it is World Rivers Day, so prepare for then a post about a river. It can be any river, from the little Piddle to the mighty Mississippi, the choice is yours. Just say why you've selected it, what it means to you, and why it should be celebrated.
2) The YourBlog Experience!
And this is one for now. It goes back to the debate previously about how the internet in general and bloggers specifically are harming the poor old newspaper industry. All that free news online means fewer and fewer are paying for good old ink and paper.
I'm pretty convinced the answer must be an open standard of micropayments that allows all news (and other) sites to charge a few cents or pennies per page.
But in this article in the Guardian newspaper they suggest another - create the Newspaper Experience.
The idea comes from the music industry, where income from music sales is threatened by illegal pirate downloads (boo! hiss! etc) and the one source of income that seems unthreatened is the live performance. As more and more is digitised and virtualised the real becomes more and more attractive.
And why stop at music, why not create the newspaper experience? The Guardian reader can hug a tree, the FT reader can attend Make Me A Millionaire! seminars, and the current bun can host wet t-shirt competitions. The key point is that the brand means they can charge for these experiences, which connect to what the paper stands for.
So, finally, the writing project. Imagine you had to create the ultimate YourBlog Experience! that captures the essence of what your blog is about and which your audience might possibly be convinced to pay to do.
Alas the last bit is the inner businessman in me coming out. Think of it as a Dragon Den's pitch, but without the awkward questions.
Write it up and post a comment here when done.
