Pajamas Media Reforms; No More Ads. Too Bad, It’s Called ‘Business’
The conservative blogosphere was set ablaze late yesterday after Protein Wisdom’s Jeff Goldstein published a post about Pajamas Media’s decision to do away with its ad network. Goldstein was informed about this decision after PJM sent him an e-mail announcing the changes.
To say that the email angered Goldstein is a slight understatement. He – and others like Ace of Spades – feel betrayed by Pajamas Media. They became dependent on this ad network for their revenue; if PJM stops, and it will April 1 of this year, they’ll face major financial issues.
Quite some bloggers had to tell former advertisers they could no longer do business with them in order to join PJM years ago, when PJM was created.
Like every blogger using PJM ads, I received the same email as Goldstein. Although it’s always sad when the time has come for two business partners to go say goodbye and move on, I don’t quite understand how PJM can make anyone feel betrayed. As Rick Moran argues for Right Wing Nut House, PJM and bloggers have a business contract with each other. The one offers the other something, and vice versa. At the time of signing the contract, all involved thought they would be better off. If this system does no longer work (or at least not as well as other business models) for PJM, however, it doesn’t make sense for them to keep pumping money into blogs – not into Ace of Spades, nor into Protein Wisdom, and, finally, not into PoliGazette.
PJM is a business enterprise. Its first and foremost goal is to make as much money, as high a profit as it can. Its managers believe more money can be made by producing more Internet television – PJTV. Whether they are right or wrong remains to be seen. All that matters is that they have every right to change their business model.
As for me, I enjoyed working with PJM: it resulted in me getting paid a fair amount of money every quarter, which is great for every blogger, albeit especially for a blogger who also happens to be a student. There are, however, other ways to make money through ads. We had PJM, it made me money which was great, but I now look forward to working with other companies who believe investing in / advertising on blogs helps their business.
I created a BlogAds account only two weeks ago or so – I’m pretty sure this will help me sell advertising space. And if that doesn’t work out, I’ll focus on other ways to earn money – there are always opportunities to make money for those who persist.
Lastly, as I understand it, PJM will continue to publish articles – it’s just the ad network that will cease to exist. My understanding is that I will continue writing articles for them. Those articles too are based on a business agreement; they think that my articles add something to their site, I believe the money they pay me is enough for the product I produce (=article).
Michael: I wrote about this as well, from the perspective of a self-supporting “9th-tier” blogger and aspiring public intellectual. Rick Moran nails, and good work here as well.
Go with Google Adsense.
And it is good that PJM ad network is going away. They didn’t have any interesting ads in my opinion and it seemed like the same ones over and over. They also seemed to funding a lot of really crappy conservative blogs, that really don’t deserve to exist.
Aside from slightly higher ad income the PJ network didn’t add much, if anything, to the blogs it signed. Hard to say what promises might have been made to any of the affected writers, but you’re certainly right that in the absence of a specific agreement it’s Simon’s right to do whatever he wants with his company’s direction.
Michael, perhaps you could inform your contributors what, if any, impact this will have on the PoliGazette. Off-line, of course.
Probably for the best. Now you can select what ads you wish to use.