The Decision To Syndicate

For the good old American lifestyle: For the money, for the glory, and for the fun... mostly for the money. 

- The Bandit

I had a pretty good response to yesterday's question asking whether I should take Riverini up on his offer to syndicate The Nosy Gamer on Eve News 24.  I'm currently having some work done on my teeth the last few days and I haven't been thinking too clearly so I appreciated the response confirming I hadn't completely lost my mind.  I've contacted Riverini accepting the offer and you may see one of my article gracing the front page of EN24 Soon™.

A couple of commenters asked why I wouldn't want to appear on Eve News 24.  A very good question that deserves an answer. 

Eve News 24's Reputation:  One of the basic truths of Eve News 24 is that it is a tabloid-style media outlet.  Since I sometimes criticize the mainstream gaming media for poor reporting, associating with EN24 could reduce my credibility in some eyes.  Then again, the National Enquirer was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for covering a story the mainstream media refused to pursue, so maybe I should join the 21st century.

Traffic:  When I first heard of EN24's syndication program last year I thought that people would just settle for reading the story on EN24 and not continue on to the blog.  When my article appeared at the top of the feed on the EN24 front page, the traffic noticably spiked.  I've also noticed a smaller jump in traffic when I've had posts linked to in articles that appeared on EN24.  So if I self-link appropriately in articles then I should not suffer traffic-wise.

In-game Consequences:  Eve is a game where all players are on a single shard.  And with PvP possible everyone outside a station, actions and words have consequences.  EN24 provides a bigger audience to get someone mad enough to want to do bad things in game.  But after further reflection, so what?  If I was really afraid of that, I wouldn't blog in the first place.

Selling out:  I've never blogged for pay before.  I've written intelligence reports when I was in the Army and technical instructions and training materials in my current job, but that was business.  Blogging is fun.  I was afraid of having to alter what I write, which in a lot of cases is about subjects not related to Eve.  But with the terms of the syndication I don't have to change what I write as long as I don't care about getting a lot of posts on EN24.  Besides, this is Eve.  Getting paid to do stuff you would do for free is a good thing.

I should add two additional factors that make having some posts syndicated onto Eve News 24.  The first is the challenge.  EN24 has a lot of content that is pretty similar from one post to the next.  Can I come up with some good quality articles on some of the odd-ball subjects I like that Riverini will want to publish?  The second are the trolls.  After a blogger reaches a certain level of popularity he will get trolls.  Some say that a blogger hasn't really made it until he gets his own personal troll.  But I'd rather get the trolls over on EN24 than on the blog.  Trolls are messy sometimes and I'm kind of lazy.  Of course, I have to have one here to prove I'm successful, but let most of them hang out on EN24 where they will get more exposure.

This is probably enough about me to last for a few months.  More interesting posts to begin again tomorrow.