Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Fair play to ye! As they say in Tipperary. I'm talking about Jason Kottke who took the plunge this week and became a full-time blogger. The man can code, the man can write; he thinks, he links, he's got what it takes. In a clever riff on the "micropayments" melody, he's come up with a "micropatron" concept, and in a vote of confidence, Anil Dash quickly untrousered the stipulated $30 and became a micropatron. "I believe in the idea of everyone being a Medici, except without the nasty Medici habit of infiltrating the papacy," is how he put it his ardent post about the move.

But why patronage? Why not product promotion? Why Medici and not Madison Avenue? Here's how Jason explained it in his announcement:

"If ads were involved, I might feel the need to change what or how I write to appease advertisers. I might write to increase pageviews and earn more revenue. I could fill pages with ads, earning more revenue but making the content more difficult to read or pushing some content off the page entirely. You could block advertising and deny me needed revenue."

In one of those odd coincidences that makes it worth getting out of bed each morning, the issue of advertising in blogging bubbled to the surface the day after Jason went public with his decision. Involved was the former Financial Times reporter and columnist Tom Foremski, who courageously left the day job last year to become a professional blogger. Foremki's excellent Silicon Valley Watcher has just accepted its first sponsor and the blog praised its client in a fulsome posting. This prompted Dan Gillmor, the guru of grassroots journalism, to raise a red flag: "The Silicon Valley Watcher posting is advertising, and should be explicitly labeled that way," said Dan. Before the ink was dry, so to speak, Tom was tapping at his keyboard and out flowed "An open letter to Dan Gillmor". It concludes with this uplifting statement:

"As journalist bloggers we should seek to communicate as clearly as possible and signpost as much of this brave new world as we can. It is important to show that blogging is not some weird gonzo-like form of journalism, but that it might even be a superset of journalism -- able to accommodate all the familiar forms of journalism such as news, features, interviews -- and the wondrously new forms that arise."

Medici vs. Madison Avenue? There need be no conflict if the markers are clear. Both are valid and it's great to see the two emerging as potential blogging business models. Could a hybrid form work? You know: Medici Avenue, a mix of patronage and promotion? Can't see why not, really. The Via Medici will be discussed at the next meeting of the Rainy Day board, which is scheduled for Dublin in mid-March.