You can't make $$ off of what I write!!

There's a lot to learn about the game of blogging. If you are like me, you started off by reading a few of the "godmothers" of the "mommy blog" world and were too scared to ever leave a comment, because what could you say that would possibly be of any interest to them, especially when they already get gobs of comments from so many others?

The first blog that I ever read was Dana's of MAMALOGUES and I had found her by reading our local newspaper online, where she used to write a weekly column. One thing led to another and I found many of the other blogs that I follow through comments left on her site. I lurked and I lurked, then I got tired of lurking and wanted to leave comments but felt I needed to have something to offer back and decided to start my own little blog. Little did I (or still do) know what really goes into gaining a strong readership, and if you so desire, income!

Just because you start writing does not mean that the readers will come, no matter how unique your content is, or how fabulous of a writer you are. (which I do not claim to be!) Initially, I just started commenting on the blogs that I frequented and that helped, but then I went out to dinner with two seasoned bloggers, and boy did I feel green. I sat back and just listened and it all sounded greek to me. Technorati authority ratings, google page ranks, blogher, buzz rankings, etc. My head was spinning. I was totally overwhelmed, and felt like my little 'ole blog that I started to document the future blackmail of my children was never going to be read unless I *SIGNED UP* for everything.

I started doing some digging around and found some sites that I felt comfortable putting my blog on, because afterall, I am putting pictures of my children, and my home here. I eventually found my way to stlbloggers and thought that it was pretty cool. Here was a place that listed a bunch of bloggers in the Saint Louis area....who knew there were so many of us? I had no idea!
It actually made me pause and think for a while. Do I want to sign up here? What if they figure out who I am, or where I live, or where I work?

I did decide to go ahead and sign up after meeting a bunch of fabulous people during the December bloggers gathering. *Note* It was my decision. Now, here after a very lengthy lead in, where it is evident that I am still a novice in the blogging game, it has come to my attention, that there is a website called BNN (I won't link to it) at some point it seems, took almost the entire blog roll from stlbloggers and is taking their feeds and putting them on the front page of that site. (at one point without direct link backs) What's the big deal about that?

Luckily for me, I'm not included in the BNN website, unlike many of my fellow stlbloggers. But, if I was, this would be a huge deal to me. For starters, I would freak out if my numbers dropped suddenly. I would question what I had been writing, maybe I hadn't been putting myself out there enough, or whatever. I still get excited when a new person comments for the first time! How would I know that there's a site aggregating my content unless I started sleuthing around? Secondly, I personally have chosen not to have ads on my site. It doesn't bother me that others do, and I have clicked occasionally to see what there is to see, but I wanted mine, for the time being to be ad free. BNN is making money off you reading my blog on its site. I would have no say to what ads that would be sitting next to my children's pictures, and if I did have ads on my site, then you wouldn't even be clicking over to my actual site, so in a way, BNN would be stealing money away from me. They are using other people's words to make money for them, and we get no say in the matter. My fellow bloggers didn't sign up for this site, and apparently it is very difficult to get removed.

You can follow the heated debate by the many of the bloggers directly involved and Dave Mastio (From BNN) here. It was very enlightening for a green blogger like myself. It's not all fun and games here in blog land is it?

You can also read other posts on this topic:
The State of Discontent **an absolute MUST READ if you want to be totally educated on this!
Todd Jordan
Mamalogues
News Bitch
Little Bald Doctors
WOBL in Training
Slacker-Moms-R-Us
Prologos
MidwestBlogs-SaintLouis
SuperFunPatrol