Money Online

The story
Let me tell you a little story about an experiment conducted in the last century on a group of cimps. The experiment consisted in placing 4 cimps in a cage, a ladder in the middle and a banana hanging above the ladder. Every time a chimp tried to climb the ladder to get the banana, cold water was thrown on all of them. After several experiences like this, no monkey was trying to grab the banana anymore. Now comes the funny part… In the next stage, the conductors of the experiment replaced one of the chimps with another one (that obviously did not know about the cold water shower). When the new guy tried to climb the ladder, the others started beating him up.
One by one, all 3 remaining monkeys of the initial group were replaced with new ones. The result was a little surprising; even if all the subjects that knew about the cold water that was thrown on them if they tried to grab “the forbidden fruit” were gone, the others kept on beating any new guy that was trying to climb the ladder. However, the explanation for this behavior, is obvious: the monkeys have got the idea that climbing the ladder was wrong, even if they didn’t know why.

You have to “walk the walk” before you can “talk the talk”
Now how does all that monkey business relate to blogging? Well it seems like there are some bloggers that do nothing but replicate what some famous bloggers say. For example, if an A-list blogger says that a 120 x 90 adsense link unit will give you a low ctr, several others “smaller” bloggers will repeat this “advice” without actually experimenting to see if that could work for them or not. Another category of people would put it like this: “AAAA said …. I did not try it yet, but I will and let you know if it works for me”. Wrong again! If you just repeat what “AAAA” said, and have really nothing more to say about it, nobody wants to hear the same story again. However, if you have something more to add to the initial “story”, or better yet, if you don’t agree to it and bring arguments in favor of your statement, it becomes interesting. Further more, what did not work for them, may actually work for you. You never know unless you try it yourself, or at least giving it a serious thought.

A real example of “monkey blogging”
The first thing that comes in my mind as an eloquent example for what I am trying to say, is the controversy that was generated by the appearance on the market of the PayPerPost service. I remember that when it was launched a few well known bloggers where totally against it. This triggered an army of less popular bloggers that just kept repeating how evil PayPerPost was and how it “poluted” the blogosphere, without even brining their personal thoughts and obviously without actually trying the service themselfs. The funny thing is a lot of them nowadays use it a stream of income. Needless to say that their initial statement was worthless. It’s perfectly understandable that many of the A-list bloggers can’t benefit much from a service like the one mentioned above, but for others it may prove to be a considerable source of revenue (compared to what they are making overall).

The conclusion(s)

1)Filter every information that you read, no matter if it comes from Darren Rose, John Chow or any others. If something doesn’t work for them, it does not necessarily mean that it can’t work for you (especially if you don’t fit in the same category).

2)You don’t have to blindly agree with someone, no matter how famous he is. If you do agree with a certain statement, but don’t have nothing to add to it does not make an interesting post. Unless you have reasons to believe that your audience hasn’t already heard about it, it is better not to mention it again because it does not bring value to your blog. Remember that personal opions and solid arguments are the keys to content driven blogs. Be careful not to fall on the other side and disagree with everybody just for the fun of it.

3)If you have the chance, TRY IT YOURSELF, before talking about it.