Blogging for a Cause…or Just Because?

Posted by Matt Purdue

It pains me to write this. It really does. A good friend of mine is involved in the b5media Great Blog Off today. b5media is the company behind more than 300 blogs. Beginning at 12:01 a.m. June 20, b5’s bloggers will be challenged with posting one piece of fresh news per hour for 24 hours to raise awareness of and money for a pair of charities: Accion International and the Actors Fund. It’s not entirely clear how b5 intends to raise cash for these organizations (they’ve posted some mousetype on a web page asking for donations of $1 per post or $10 to sponsor a post). That’s troublesome enough, but not the real point.

I’m all for creative ways to raise ducats for charity, and hate to nitpick a company that’s supporting good causes. But what bothers me is that this effort turns blogging and bloggers into commodities. The point of b5’s campaign seems to be to fill its blogs for a day with a backhoe, to find “news” or generate “opinions” wherever and whenever they can to hit that goal of one post per hour. In an era when many bloggers are fighting so ferociously for a seat at the mainstream media table, it doesn’t help their argument to see a large publisher use blogging as simply a means to an end—no matter how magnanimous the intentions.

In the short run, this may not be a big deal. If the guy who runs the Ugly Betty blog is desperate at 3:58 p.m. because he’s only got two minutes to hit his one-blog-per-hour target, he can throw together a post about America Ferrera’s eyebrows. I somehow doubt that Western Civilization will collapse because of it. But, in the end, is this what blogging should really be about?