don't bother about these ppl, the way they interpreted the whole thing explained exactly the title of one of these so-called bloggers' latest post! =)

Cheer up and stop thinking that it's embarrasing to quit your job and join your boyfriend overseas. Your love needs a little more credit than that. Good luck.

*yawn* You call your previous post constructive? Frankly it's patronising shallow and crying out for attention.

You weren't given the full picture because it's none of your business and none of us have to explain ourselves or justify anything to anything.

You can read it or not, like it or not, I don't really care.

We also don't have to justify anything, it's a public blog so? Same goes for everyone else, don't like it, don't read it, is that hard? It might work, it might not, that remains to be seen, there are plenty of ideas but we are busy people with lives..

Seen as though you spammed this URL to me on MSN you must think it's really important and ground-breaking.

Well done, thanks for educating me.

Obviously someone with 10% of the facts knows much better than me...

My name is ShaolinTiger and I'm naive and stupid and I'm being exploited.

Bad ST. *waggles finger* No flame war starting, thanks! ;) j/k

I can see where you're coming from, Zona, abt your thinking that the bloggers are being exploited. But if you look at the other side of the coin, you could say NST put up a playground for bloggers to play, to add credibility and give them a chance to get through to a bigger audience than the ones that frequent their blogs.

I don't think that the bloggers would be in it if there wasn't something to gain for it too. Though right now I find it hard to see where it's going with the dearth of content on the blog. Nothing right now that makes me feel I have to visit but kasi canlah first.

Nothing more to say except.

STFU NOOB.

That is all.

P.S this is to the author of said blog.

Some people are odd. I think they're just young or immature or something. Can't imagine why people do this personal attack thing, it's just weird. Lots of angst on the net.

I didn't think you were being patronising or offensive either..

Am with Erna on the point of the playground, which is why I wouldn't quite call it exploitation, not when the relationship is more symbiotic.

Based only on those blogs pinging to PPS (I may be wrong, but a large number of the MB bloggers appear to be present on PPS), I'd generalise that the majority species appears to be those whose motivation for blogging is heavily tied to "blogging-for-an-audience".

MB is just another avenue for them to get their writing "out there".

You've certainly got a very valid point there, that this practice does jeopardise efforts to encourange the flourishing of a credible, quality pool of freelance writing.

Why should corporations pay for writers, when they've got bloggers willing to write for free?

It's sad, as is with most things here, our society hasn't reached a level of sophistication to appreciate that long-term value is in being associated with quality writing (which, realistically, is something that needs the incentive of proper compensation).

I think if the paper wants to have its own brand-name blog, the more credible thing would be for it to have its own writers, ie persons who don't already have personal blogs. Ah, but then to do that, it would need to talk abt salaries or stipends at least.

Credibility doesnt seem to be of any concern.

Some of its resident bloggers appear not to be doing NST's credibility any favours either, by responding personally outside of MB.

It just comes back to the same point. You have a very valid point to discuss. Unfortunately, there isn't enough maturity to go around for a proper discussion/commentary.

Aww, poor lily. You got your arse chewed up over something so silly.

Anyways, you shouldn't worry about it too much, loads of people are willing to work for free because their time is worthless...

After making a whole bunch of us go to TGIF to fill up the seats because you didn't have enough audience and not offering any compensation whatsoever for that - we had to pay for our expensive dinner ourselves - I guess that makes you the expert on the subject of exploitation huh?

Irony!

midnite lily: Yes, that is the truth. & its not an irony. Its one of the reasons I left the company, and am thinking to leave the industry.

LOL paul.

Continuing on my point on credibility (and its sister concept - professionalism), it's interesting to note the tone & quality of argument of those who have been unable to resist the temptation to personally respond outside of MB.

It only goes to further illustrate the sandbox nature of the MB concept.

Midnite Lily, I salute the balls it must take to air your perspective on this issue, given the fragile sensitivities prevalent in this corner of the Malaysian blogosphere.

Nuts to sensibilities. The real truth is probably closer to the fact that supply has gone way up, and as a result prices have dropped to zero or near zero level. When there are not many good writers, of course people will pay a lot for it. But now most people write for free, the price has come down. The many people writing for free over the net has resulted in an increase of supply that has more or less cannibalized the market. A lot of people (like me) write for free, we don't consider it exploitation. In fact, I think it's wrong to say that we don't have a reward, it's just that it's not in monetary terms. In the end, everyone sells something. For instance, if anyone wants to just read my post (LOL.. yeah right, but please let me be anal for a while) he might come to this page, and then he'd be contributing to your coffers, and not mine. Do I consider this exploitation ? I don't. I write this for free because, frankly speaking, this ain't worth a cent. No research was done, no effort made to verify any facts (what facts ? these are just opinions, or ramblings if you prefer.) I _do_ do paid writing, but it's of a very specialized, factual nature. That costs because of the time spent, the investment in test equipment, and also because the years I spent gaining and education and experience wasn't free. But this, is just recreational writing. A conversation with intelligent, literate people, the like of which is not easy to find offline :) so there you are, I write this stuff for free because I can, and it's kinda fun to write, and you're a nice person to write to (nothing to do with being anal, nothing at all LOL) I wouldn't dream of charging for this any more than I would dream of NOT charging for the other stuff. So there you see, it's not worth a thing, it's just me being anal because I hate to see people being labeled without doing a thing, it's like watching a murder without reporting it.

I suspect the people who write for Monsterblog are the same. Yup, fragile sensitivities indeed.