June 1, 2009
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ASM Hate–Everybody’s Doing It!
Since it seems to be pretty popular here on Xanga to hate on AntiSoccerMom, I thought I’d take this opportunity to get my kicks in.
Some time shortly after I came across her site, she made a post about Google Ads. She asked if you “tip” the blogs you read by clicking on their ads. (I tried to find it to link to in this post, but after reviewing all the post currently available through her archives I could not find it. Granted, she is notorious for removing posts that are not well-received, get her into trouble or create too much controversy.)
I thought this was classless. Here is a top blogger who ran Google Ads at the time who was using reverse psychology to get people to click on her ads so she could make money. I remember being so pissed when I read the post. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The only thing more whorish she could have done was set up a porn site and charge for it.
I thought about reporting it to Google and even casually looked into where to report such behavior, but I let it go. After all, she never said “Please click on my links.” And I think the whole concept of “tips” is bullshit. Why? Because if we all went around clicking on each other’s links, no one would make any money, because the advertisers would be getting tons of click-throughs but no sales. Google would charge them for the click-throughs and they would complain that their advertising isn’t effective and would claim that Google was selling them a bill of goods and want their money back. See, there’s no such thing as free money.
Now, maybe Niki/Jackie/December Kennedy/ASM got some and maybe she didn’t. That’s not the point. The point is, I should have spoken out then but I’m speaking out now. I don’t know how the hell she went from zero to “everyone on Xanga loves me” but the fact is, her time here is over. I just thought i’d add this nail to her coffin.
I’m betting she’ll come back just to ban me for this post.
P.S. I hate it when ASM and Dan talk about the old days of Xanga. I’ve had my Xanga longer than either of them and posted before they did. Oh sure, they might have had other blogs. But if you’re going to use up site names like some troll buying up domain names. You people suck.
P.P.S. I also think that whoever ASM really is should write novels. They’re pretty good with churning up bullshit that others like to read.
Comments (23)
Neh. *I* miss the old days of Xanga, too.
I’d like to point the other person posted a tip on how to exploit the widget program to farm credits for free premium, which could have cost Xanga itself some revenue. Though we have a difference of opinion on ASM, I respect your right not to like her. And google is smart about felonious ad clicking.
ASM was damn annoying. I was subbed to her for about three days before I couldn’t take it anymore and unsubbed her. She’s what The Beatles would have referred to as a mixer–she likes to stir things up. Namely trouble.
I saw A&D tonight, btw. It was pretty good. Public Enemies looks like it’s going to be sooooo kick ass.
@IfonEarth – I don’t remember them because I was still new to blogging then. I can say, though, that blogging has helped me meet a lot of like-minded people and make a lot of friends, but virtual (like yourself) and many that I’ve met. These are interesting times that we live in.
Oh, for what it’s worth, I was looking through my friends list because I was going to use the time that I added ASM to figure out when she made that post. I saw your name and thought, “IfonEarth hasn’t commented me in a long while.” Well, that’s not the case at this point.
@Paul_Partisan – Your comment is a bit unclear about the Widget thing, but yes, given a long enough timeline, people will exploit any service.
I want to like ASM I really do. The problem is that despite all of her writing, I never got to know who she really is. So I thought that this woudl be the perfect oppurtunity to air my grievences.
Also, I didn’t think you read my blog. I’m still waiting on the interview you promised (though I know that you said you had to prioritize them.)
@heidenkind - Agreed. She annoyed the hell out of me too. I unsubbed a long time ago, but for whatever reason, I threw her site in my RSS reader. It’s still there to this day. The fact is, whoever the hell is ASM is a damn good writer(s) and they know how to move a blogging service to action, but at the end of the day, they deserve their own place to gossip like Perez Hilton so that the rest of the world can tune them out.
Funny you should mention Angels & Demons. Someone on Live Journal was just asking about that.
@ProfessorTom - The whole Interview thing got to a point where it got to be a hassle. Good thing is since I have not done one in awhile I could do that with you first now sometime.
And the Widget thing was those 500 credit ads people post, there as a way to exploit it with multiple accounts to get 100K+ credits in 20 minutes or something, TTC had a post about it months ago.
@Paul_Partisan – Just let me know. My message is always open. PM me if you would like my email (though I think it’s on my profile.)
Interesting about the Widgets. I know that if you post them and then immediately delete the post, you loose the credits, I would think that Xanga would want to make it such that once you deleted the post, you lost the credits. That could get sticky though if say, for instance, someone were to post the Widget, buy Premium for a month or a year and then turn around and delete the post. I wouldn’t go so far as to take Premium away from the user, but would you make them have a negative balance on their credits? That would be a harsh toke.
@ProfessorTom - *grins* I’m only just getting back from a break myself.
For me, it isn’t as much about the community as a whole back then, but about the fact that I actually knew people here. I mean, knew in real life knew. It was a whole different dynamic, which I’m sure you understand.
Oh, and because I happened to see the comment… I liked Angels and Demons. I mean, as far as a movie goes — I’m not much of a movie person, so… Yeah. (I haven’t read the book, though.)
@IfonEarth – I haven’t read the book either. I keep promsing and promsing a review of the film and have seen it twice for that purpose. If only there were more hours in a day.
@ProfessorTom - HAH. I think a lot of us often wish there were more hours in a day. Ah, well. I lose the sleep in favor of more hours, healthy or not. :]
@IfonEarth – When you get old like me, your body shuts down and you can’t stay awake. Sleep becomes mandatory.
@ProfessorTom - Does that mean you’re going to write that review soon-ish?
@heidenkind – *sigh* That would be the implication, yes.
Well, you don’t have to write it.
Um, did you just say “old like me” up there in a comment as if you’re old? *shoots daggers at you from afar*
I read this blog on my phone earlier this a.m. but I can’t comment from my phone (happens a lot). Anyway, I gotta say, you threw me off on this one. I started reading your rant about ASM and the Google tipping thing and I thought it was heading toward the direction of “then I realized maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing and I’ve decided to open my blog to Google tipping, too.” Lol… glad you didn’t go that route. I might’ve been a little disappointed. I know you use ads and I’ve openly admitted I click on your ads now and then – it’s not tipping in my mind and you’ve NEVER solicited, but it’s just something I did/do.
Anyway, that being said, I agree. And from a personal standpoint, I subbed to ASM late last year (when I was working and thusly had far more time to read blogs!). Her writing is great – when she blogged about something OTHER than Xanga drama and complaining about issues surrounding top blogs and Xangalebrity stuff. After one or two of her blogs, I tired out real quick. It was just constant drama over who said what or who stabbed whom in the back or whatever. Booooring. And she started getting out of hand with mass messaging, my ultimate pet peeve. I love reading good writing like hers, but I’m not interested in all the blogging a person does in order to peddle their blogging to the masses, you know?
And I agree with what you said about her and Dan discussing ‘the old days on Xanga’. I got here before or around the same time they did (I think – 2002 for me). I never even heard of either of their blogs until last year when, again, I was bored at work and started checking out the front page of Xanga. I guess everyone’s perception of the ‘old days’ of Xanga are relative. My old days of Xanga never included metabloggers. I think Dan and BigShow are the only metabloggers on my subs list (Matthew is a quality writer in my opinio) and Dan’s comments are interesting to read). I have a few other B-listers. I guess the point of having a blog (especially a public one) is to get as many people to read your stuff as possible to create traffic and revenue, but I miss the days when people just wrote about their lives and enjoyed blogging rather than trying to find new ways to drum up drama and controversy. I don’t know if that makes sense. That’s just me, though : )
@ProfessorTom - Oh, I don’t doubt it. I’m sure it’ll catch up to me soon enough. But until then, I may as well take advantage of it. :]
@DirtyAndShaken - Matt is awesome. :]
@IfonEarth – Amen, Sister! Amen!
@DirtyAndShaken - Um, did you just say “old like me” up there in a comment as if you’re old? *shoots daggers at you from afar*
Yes, I did. I’ve got one foot on the grave and one foot on a banana peel.
I read this blog on my phone earlier this a.m. but I can’t comment from my phone (happens a lot).
What phone do you have? Why couldn’t you comment?
glad you didn’t go that route.
Funny you should mention that.
When I first conceived this post, I thought that I would get a lot of traffic off of it. Hell, I even thought about timestamping it this morning for that purpose. I hoped that I could start the next round of Xanga drama and benefit from the traffic. Plus, if someone were dumb enough to click on my ads, I wouldn’t have minded. But as I wrote the post, I realized why I really hated her for doing this. As I stated in the post, everyone looses when just one person decides to be a little greedy. I’m betting she made money off of that post by getting everyone to click on her ads. I don’t know if she got in trouble with Google (I kind of hope she did) or not, but I do know that she stopped running the ads.
Wouldn’t you know it, I just went to her site to see if she was still running Google Ads to fact-check and lo I was taken back to the Xanga homepage. Banned!
Yes, I agree she was annoying as hell and couldn’t be reasoned with, but she could hit the nail on the head when she wanted to. I hope she contacts leprosy so no one will take her seriously again.
I never even heard of either of their blogs until last year
ASM was started last year, so that’s why you heard of her then. As for Dan, I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been subbed to him because at one point I dropped my sub and stuck him in my RSS reader. I like when he beats the major networks to breaking news, but then again some of his stuff is just out there.
What the hell is a metablogger? The only thing I can come up with for a defintion of meta blogging is blogging about blogging. I kinda get the “meta” and could perhaps apply it in different ways as did treelights, but again, I still come back to the place where I started from. Please discuss.
I guess the point of having a blog (especially a public one) is to get as many people to read your stuff as possible to create traffic and revenue
See, this has never been my aim with having a blog. At first, I didn’t have friends that blogged. (Read, I didn’t have friends.) Of those who did blog, their blogs were uninteresting and are now dead. So I had a bad start with blogging. Just check my archives. My blog sucked. But I used it as a journal that I wasn’t afraid for people to read. So I wrote.
Thankfully, ehowton started blogging and I started reading him and forming my posts accordingly. Now that we’ve finally gotten the hang of it, HTML 5 is going to give way to Web 3.0 and we’ll have to learn the new way all over again. Bleh!
Now I wouldn’t dream of writing such rubbish as I did back then, but then again, I did just burn two posts on my being a lazy lard ass. Oh vey! I am aware of my audience now and so I craft posts with my readers in mind instead of me in mind. After all, if I want feedback, I can’t give them long, boring, dry self-centered shit every single post.
When Xanga announced that they were going to allow Premium users to run Google Ads, I was ecstatic! For once, I could get paid for my writing! I had tried in vain to add the Google code to both Xanga on LJ but they block that particular Javascript. Since Xanga is more social (by which I mean it takes far less to meet people on Xanga than on LJ) I started getting into friending and stuff which leant to more readers. Now don’t get me wrong: I’ve run Googe Ads since December and I’ve only now made $3.82 Woohoo! If I could live off of blogging, I would, but the fact of the matter is I’m not a whore like ASM or Dan is. I don’t go to the metros and friend. I don’t spend 20 hours a day on Xanga. I’m not the most social person.
See, the thing about blogging, to me, is that if you’re going to make friends on a site like Xanga or LJ, you really ought to get to know the person, just like you and I have gotten to know each other. Live Journal nurtures this relationship more than Xanga does because of the way their Friends List works, communities and threaded comments.
The FL is just one long feed of posts, both public and protected (if you’re signed in) of the people you subscribe to. Communites are like blogrings should be on Xanga. Communities are formed around a topic, idea, etc. i.e. macintosh. Threaded comments allow for each train of thought to be distinctly broken out so you can follow the conversation. So LJ is promoting people to come together and passionately discuss the things they believe in. If you would like a whitepaper on this, please vist http://www.livejournalinc.com/LJ_Research_Report.pdf.
I like to get to know the people I read and the people reading me. Sure, I have people on my list that I don’t really know and haven’t taken the time to get to know, but still, the people that I read even on a semi-regular basis I try to learn as much about them as I can.
So in short, blogging for me is about gaining new ideas and perspectives as you hone your own craft. Plus, if you subscribe to vertical blogs, you know that you’re going to get topical posts on things that you are interested in and within a few posts, you will know if it’s something that you want to read.
I said all that to say that I think that blogging is a bit more than “Dear Journal”, doesn’t have to be commercial, but should be geared for the reader. Discuss.
God you’re bitter. Don’t you have anything better to do?
@heidenkind – I’m just now getting the email notification on this comment, but as I have Pulsed and written in my latest post, my next post will be my review of Angels & Demons.
ASM is a cunt. She lies and she’s a nut. No one really liked her. If she made so much money off blogging why was she always complaining about how broke she was? She needed to be called Antimom like Zeke said.
@–0— – Well, I see that you’re commenting annomously from Colorado where ASM hails from. Interesting.
I don’t know who Zeek is, but he does have a point. If she ran even half of the businesses she purported to run, how in the hell could she be struggling for money? It would seem to me that she would be able to make plenty of it once she found something she wanted to do. What a bunch of crock.