Aiya... For once I agree with you.

Thought we don't see eye to eye on other issues, I must agree with you totally on this one. Well written post!

2 Thumbs Up !!!!!

ya, damn the mainstream fuckers! let's be exploited by alternative media instead.. like, bloggers!

there's slightly more than what is said. is better not to take things at face value. there may be compensation, not now, maybe later, even if not it's something we learn along the way. i don't agree with your post lor. will keep that discussion another time, holidaying now :D

suanie asked me to delete this comment she made. i don't want to. only because i did do my research and talk to some of the monsterbloggers. and they said the same thing.

i guess they assume that i don't know what i'm talking about. but i have been a writer alongside my 6 years working in television. and experienced similar lies and promises from people. people who make me write for free with the promise of something later. other writers have experienced the same thing. being naive, you lie to yourself, and spoil the market for others. if you don't see it this way, i'm sorry for you. but my own experience has proven that if you let people step on you, you make it hard on yourself, and on others.

a freebie now, and people will expect a freebie all the time.

soporific: would appreciate more constructive comments, thanks. btw, you have a brain, you don't need to be exploited by the bloggers. including me.

Agreed but why pick on NST ? the pages of The Star are sometimes filled with content that's credited "blogs.thestar.com.my" or something similar -- what about that ?

Agreed but what about The Star ? I think they're doing the same thing too so why pick on the NST ?

i asked u to delete the comment because i wrote it in haste and after a few beers. i could have phrased it better, but since we talked on yahoo it doesn't bother me anymore. cheers.

erm & what about that? (who is the same person): i have nothing against any one publication. pls don't misunderstand. just becos u see one opinion piece on one of them doesn't mean that i don't have my opinion about the others.

while the monsterblog seems to be using famous bloggers to get traffic, the star's blog uses it more as a medium extension for opinion letters from the public. cheap and easy too. but in other countries, even opinion pieces/letters get paid. you could say it "exploits" the public, not a set group of people.

a voice for the public vs a voice for a group of bloggers who work like journalists and columnists. which is the lesser evil?

suanie, dear... the internet is media. blogs or not, the whole aspect of it works at gaining an audience and has a gatekeeping process over information. you cannot hide from people what your intentions are. because what they see, they will form opinions of it. even if you clarified it with me, if you're running a public "face". you need to know what you want to show your audience and how you want them to perceive you.

Sorry about the double.. the thing wouldn't post the first time (the posting mechanism here is weird, it screws up sometimes.) Actually, if you really want to look at it that way, you could say "exploitation of a group of bloggers vs exploitation of the public, which is a lesser evil ?" but then again I think evil is evil, either way it's still exploitation.

no worries. u need to refresh to see ur comment after u've posted. i have a bitty problem with MT =((

i could do another entry, if it inspires me. hehe.. i'll take ur suggestion and see if i'll ve enough material. but for now, that's my rationale.

yeah, exploitation is evil either way. but an opinion can only go so far.

I've criticised MB before, even to the bloggers who are involved in them. But I never thought of the whole taking work from 'freelance writers' thing. Hmmm.... thansk for bringing it up. LD

quite a patronising post zona ;)

Zona dear,

From my perspective, I am explaining it, or I explained it to you because you 1) blogged about it, and 2) I know you personally, the latter more than the former. About the other stuff, I am not that bothered because if people who want answers and more information on things don't ask me directly about them, there's nothing much I can do to offer more insight to aid to their knowledge on what's really going on lor :)

well, its really no different from any other community blogging site - take the Metroblog for example. Yet people do it. Why? Because it makes sense. Because blogging as a group about a topic makes sense. I see the monsterblog as a Malaysian metroblog.

On an other note, isn't it awkward/funny that "famous Malaysian bloggers in the blogosphere" tend to be camwhores? Does this mean that most blog readers are in fact, male, and horny? Just a thought...

perceptions, kimberly. you read the way what you want to read it. as is the same way how you perceived my personal choices in life, isn't it?
fyi, i'm more jaded, to be precise.

suanie: yes you did. but you're going to have to answer to alot of people when you run a public blog.

colin: i don't even want to bring up my opinions of camwhoring. i've had enough unwanted attention for now. *grunts* =P you can add me on YM or email me if you want to know.
metroblog is independant of mainstream media, isn't it? my issue here is more about being associated with a profit-making company. i agree that there are a lot of community based blogging sites, but the concept here is detrimental to the industry IMHO. then again, i could be wrong.

monsters misconstrued

i must be really weird because from what I am reading, the update seems to be discrediting the exploiting 'giants' like NST....not the bloggers.

Interestingly.. i blogged about this back when they first launched the MoNSTer.

http://my.blogsentral.com/2006/07/15/will-the-monster-take-off/

oh.. after reading cashique's site, onli then i understood wat exploitation u were talkin about. i duno wat to say reli, because i just did a survey about unions vs young people at lecture. lol. mayb i'd think about it. btw wat i think, when nst + jaring=blogging for monsterblog, it's definitely about $. Really

little dot stomp pays SGD$250 per article.

Sorry, when posting, it gave me error message, each time; so I repost. Please delete the excesses; Thousand apologises.

A very interesting post,on a blog that I had not read before. In fact, it was a link from one of the MB's that brought me here!
I have to say, that although I respect the intentions of those who blog for Monsterblog, I believe a commercial enterprise should recompense the writers. I am sure it was very flattering to be asked to "contribute" to the NST's blog, but I believe there was a bit of commercial naivety on the part of those that did, especially considering the traffic they generate, which will be handy I suspect when the NST attempts to monetize the site.

You see:

This is what I get when posting:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@midnitelily.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I read through this post as well as Shadowfox's post, and I understand what you're getting at. I also think that the Monsterbloggers should at least get some compensation, and not let the NST use them anyway they want. But, I'll wait to see what they have to say about it.

On the other hand, I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that Monsterblog does have advantages for the bloggers, especially bloggers like Peter Tan.

The Monsterbloggers may be famous bloggers, but I'm sure that the audience they command on their own blogs is already a niche one, used to their writings and their themes. Writing on Monsterblog will give them an even wider reach, and in Peter Tan's case, raise awareness for very very good causes.

My view on this whole thing might not be very complete, but that's just what I think.

Ouch. That's... sad. I get paid RM100/article for the occasional, literal "bunch of words strung together" -- hack work -- that's published in The Star's R.AGE. These guys aren't paid at all?

Ouch. That's... pathetic at the very least. I get paid RM100/article for the occasional, literal "bunch of words strung together" -- hack work -- that's published in The Star's R.AGE. These guys aren't paid at all?

what makes you think the bloggers aren't (or can't be) exploiting (or at least benefitting from) the platform given to them on the monsterblog?

That's why I lurve mah own banners. buys nothing, sells nothing, maybe abit of laugh but that's all to it.

I can understand if a blogger puts ads in their site to help pay for their badnwidth/cost of blog but being hoodwinked into a 'community service' by a proganda machine is utterly wrong. Nanyang's coming demise would have enlighten some on the need of a balanced and not biased media, especaily when it's on a gov which needs to contantly justify itself and fails.

thank you everyone for sharing bouquet & brickbats here.

And all this time I assumed that the bloggers receive compensation. When MB debuted I was wary of this mainstream news corporation putting on a "grassroots" face, via a blog with bloggers we know so well. I dismissively thought they get paid, with all the selling-out implications. Now I learn that they don't? I find myself admiring the volunteerism, but at the same time the notion of exploitation is making me a frown. I'd be happy to hear that they do get at least vouchers or freebies or something. Because I too would rather my written products to not be undervalued.

Correct me on whatever I may be mistaken about.

who've kindly volunteered their time and service to it. And I don't think the bloggers involved realise it at all......IF IT'S ABOUT VOLUNTEERING WHY ARE U ASKING FOR MONEY!