I ain't gonna play Sun City OR No South African wine for me thank you

I'm not against bloggers making money. I don't mind looking at ads on blogs and I have no problems with people asking for donations on their blogs when they need them (even though I would never give). Also, I've tried a few schemes of my own that earned me a lot of traffic but no money.

Today, the KC Kitty is trying to put together a local blogger meetup sponsored by a South African wine maker. And that's cool, but what I want to warn against here is that these kinds of activities have a tendency to turn blogging and bloggers into a niche market rather than a source of free speech. Given enough money, anybody will sell out (including and especially me) but the problems I have with blogger meetups is that they tend to attract the hipster crowd that don't really care about personal publishing, the Internets, the fight against media consolidation or anything really besides being part of the latest buzzword. And THAT is the best way to turn blogging into a fad rather than an important part of the public discourse.

(Full disclosure: I've met quite a few local bloggers but it's never been part of any organized event and it's always been because I've been fascinated with the people behind the blogs and not because I was trying push any product. I've made quite a few good friends this way. Still, I prefer my underground lair any day over cheap wine and lots of bitching about comment spam.)

Additionally, the old blogger meetups never really captured the true diversity of the local blogosphere . . . There are teenage bloggers out there who are too busy killing their mother to go to a wine tasting . . . Along with all of the desperate single women looking for Mr. Right that might benefit from the occasion but will still end up alone and miserable.

So, because I care about each and every local blogger as if they were my children I would advise you to do what you want, enjoy free wine if that's your bag baby but please be sure to realize when somebody sees you as a dollar sign and doesn't really care what you have to say . . . Which is the way I see most women but that's for another post.

As a completely unrelated aside, I'm going to start running ads (of a sort) sometime later this week.