The Power of the Blog

I just finished watching 'The Cobert Report' on Comedy Central, a show I watch nearly every night along with 'The Daily Show'. This evening Stephen Colbert interviewed one of the biggest pricks I have ever seen in my entire life. This asshole, who calls himself Andrew Keen, has written a book titled 'The Cult of the Amateur : How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture'.

His thesis is that amateurs are ruining our culture with their ability to spew massive quantities of low quality information on the Internet. He also appears to be basing most of his thesis on the idea that only those who are properly credentialed are qualified to produce content and, therefore, be paid for it.

He comes off as an arrogant prick who is pissed off because every individual in the world is capable of being empowered. Now, let's look at my own little blog here. There are millions of Freemasons in the world yet, somehow, my blog is featured as one of the semi-official Freemason blogs on the Internet. What is even more surreal is that this isn't even a Freemason blog. It's just my personal blog but, since I happen to be a Freemason, I comment on the topic from time to time. (For example, I am being installed as Senior Deacon this Saturday for Wentzville Lodge #46; see that makes this an official Freemason blog reference.)

So, while there may be millions of Freemasons in the world I currently rank as one of the top few dozen 'official spokespersons' for the topic on the Internet.

How did this happen to come to be? Why, it's because I take the time and effort to write and maintain a blog. This is no simple task!! Millions of blogs are created that receive a handful of entries and then die on the vine. Few people have the time, interest, or incentive, to shoot off their mouth publicly on topics that are of general interest to an audience.

So, these quite active 'amateurs' are producing content that is finding an audience. It doesn't matter whether or not they have a degree in communications or journalism; such trivia is entirely irrelevant. They are exercising their right to free speech in the most democratic fashion and live or die based on the audience they can or cannot find.

Somehow I get the sense that Andrew Keen would have considered Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin's the 'cult of amateur' of their own time.

If you read about the life of Benjamin Franklin you can rest assured that nothing would have made him more proud or satisfied than the ability of every citizen in the country to exercise their free speed rights to communicate their individual ideas to whatever audience they might find.

Look, let's examine the facts. I run a blog that includes photographs of my family and personal experiences and occasionally goes off on rants about Freemasonry, theology, and philosophy. It has a modest audience but, nevertheless, generates enough Ad Sense revenue to allow me to keep my refrigerator well stocked with a wide selection of quality beers.

How dare Andrew Keen call me an amateur!! I'm a professional after all! I earn money from my blog, which affords me the ability to purchase high quality beers which, in turn, allow me to become relaxed enough to rant about whatever bizarre topic that might enter my mind, thus garnering me yet more hits to earn more money for more beer. I tell you my friends, I am most certainly not an amateur, I am a professional blogger who has just as much right to express his opinion as does Andrew Keen or any one of the millions of other bloggers in the world.

I bet Andrew Keen doesn't even drink beer; the slimy limey that he his.

Yet, I digress.

The reason I decided to post a message wasn't because of Andrew Keen and his terrible attacks on the free-speech rights of the masses but, rather, the fact that someone targeted me, and my blog, to promote their own product.

I received an email this evening from 'The History Channel'. The author targets me, and my blog, to help promote a product for the History Channel. As one of the handful of preeminent Freemason themed blogs on the Internet (as measured by its ranking on 'King Solomons Lodge') I was honored to receive this transparent effort for free promotion. I'm sure all of the other blogs featured at King Solomons Lodge received the same email.

Regular readers already know my general opinion of Dan Brown and his craptastic novel 'The DaVinci Code' but, nevertheless, I am happy to promote the History Channel DVD for anyone who might hold a higher opinion of Dan Brown than I do.

What follows is the exact email I receive:

Hello from The History Channel! I came across your site and
really love the content. http://jratcliffscarab.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html
is a great resource on the Solomon Key and the Da Vinci Code.

I wanted to let you know about an exciting event that you and your visitors might be interested in.

From now through August 29th, anyone who buys The Mystery of The Solomon Key DVD set from The History Channel will get Beyond The Da Vinci Code, FREE!

If you or your visitors would like to own a copy, you can order it in our online store—just click here: http://store.aetv.com/html/referer_entry.jhtml?vid=AE_OR_msg3_SolomonKey&dest=/html/product/index.jhtml%3fid%3d101750


If you want to help us to get the word out about this promotion with a link from your site, we would like to invite you to take part in our Affiliate Program! You can earn a commission of 7% to 13% of any sales generated by your site-for “The Mystery of the Solomon Key” or any of the other 5,000+ products we offer in our online store. If you are interested, please contact me for more details.

Thanks for watching! And again, I commend you on the quality of content your site offers. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.

Thanks,