This thread, along with the other one running about bloggers, have both been incredibly interesting to read. I learned a lot from this thread, though I do think it’s slowly going downhill.
I realize it’s probably a vocal minority, though I’m a bit surprised by how much resentment there is towards bloggers. The beauty of the internet is that you’re not forced to read anything you don’t want to. I’m incredibly appreciate of anyone that reads my blog, but if what I write about doesn’t interest you or you don’t like my writing style, I don’t want to force you to read something you don’t want to.
I do, however, think that blogging ethics are very important. I believe in posting all comments no matter how critical they are of me. And I also believe I have the obligation to post the best available offers, even if they’re not commissionable.
That being said, I think there are a few misconceptions in this thread, at least from my perspective, that I’d like to clear up.
First and foremost, I think people here are failing to realize that for the most part, the target audience for the blogs isn’t FlyerTalkers. If you’re obsessed with miles and points and spend hours a day reading FlyerTalk, chances are you won’t learn all that much from a blog. I run a points consulting business, and one of the groups I try to target with my blog are clients of mine that don’t know about FlyerTalk, or for that matter have the time, energy, or interest in spending hours a day browsing it. So one of my goals is to consolidate as much information as I can that they can read in 10 minutes a day.
Second, and I think this is key, not everyone reads every blog. Just because I’m on Boarding Area doesn’t mean that all of my readers read every one of those blogs. I know for a fact that I have readers that don’t read any other blogs on Boarding Area, and I’m sure the opposite is the case too, that people read other Boarding Area blogs but not mine. So while I make every effort to be among the first to post about a new deal or promotion, I don’t care if I’m the 10th person to post about it – I’ll still make the post. In the past I didn’t post about promotions that had been covered too much already, and then later I’d reference the promotions. I was shocked by how many people would leave comments or email me asking why I didn’t cover it, because they hadn’t seen the deal before.
Third, I think it’s important to understand that everyone is looking for different things out of a blog. Some of you think credit card posts are worthless. I know for a fact that my posts on credit cards have helped some people take vacations in business class they couldn’t have otherwise afforded. Some people think trip reports are worthless. Yet every time I post one, I get comments and emails from readers saying how much they enjoy them. And for an even more extreme example, twice a week I post reader photos. Many don’t enjoy them, but one week I skipped a day, and I got a handful of emails from readers asking why there was no photo that day, because that’s their favorite aspect of my blog.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that for now. I think this thread was useful and I think a lot of the criticisms are fair, but I think it’s important to also understand that you can’t please everyone, and this thread is a perfect example, given how many people are disagreeing with each other. One man’s worthless credit card post or trip report is another man’s treasure.