sbm12

I find that the correlation between these two is quite high.

Scottrick

You get to pick your own topics. I wouldn't mind if you turned your history lesson into a post.

yerffej201

^^

I was either half-asleep and dreaming yesterday, but I came up with this.
I think frequent flyer blogs are useful when the blogger either has a "claim to fame", unique perspective, and/or is funny.

If the blogs can get both of those, then that's good.
For example,
One Mile at a Time's claim to fame: 6 TPAC's on UA F (was it like 9 years ago?), high school 1k, etc. etc.
What he brings: travel porn, humor, amazing tr's, relatively decent analysis
View from the Wing: THE original blog (AFAIK).
What Gary brings: unique analyses, breaking news on deals (usually)

And then there are the crappier blogs...

FlyFasterFlyFarther

^^^

Each blog needs a purpose or voice, a unique perspective, otherwise what's the point?

I suppose it's fair with someone new if they're inconsistent, but they should at least have an idea of how they're different than Lucky, Gary, etc.

Much of the in this thread comes from the "me too's" that often don't add much unique value.

gloreglabert

What about all those unique referral links?

yerffej201

Some bloggers push links, some don't.
Some readers care, some don't.

The market will always eliminate the worst blogs (whether they push links or not).

Astrophsx

Please provide us examples of your last statement.

gloreglabert

The market rewards blogs that push links most effectively. Given that many of us (myself included) associate 'the worst blogs' with link-pushing, that would seem to contradict your statement. Of course, you could choose to define 'the worst' in any way you choose.

yerffej201

I personally would say that MP, Lucky, and gleff push. What I define as pushing are posts that may or may not be related to cc's yet still have at least 5 links in them. (no offense intended) Especially those that have one sentence at the end with "you can get these also/i would recommend card a, b, c, d, and e..."
That's not exactly proving my last statement but I guess the opposite?
Let me think ... I don't know numbers here, but ffu, mv, and epop (afaik) have lost their chase links. I think MV didn't push links at the very beginning, but then he did. Yet that has nothing to do with it because he's not contributing anything. all he does is talk about his award booking service, the amex merc benz plat, and booking united business class.
Just look at that attempted ana ow rules mess.
What i mean is that both good and bad bloggers push, so pushing (to an extent) has nothing to do with pageviews, less popularity, and being "eliminated" by readers.

What I meant by "worse" in my last post was that the market will eliminate those that have consecutively worse content, and thus will attract less pageviews, and then blog less, and then attract less pageviews, and on and on in a cycle.
Because some people care about link pushing and other don't (I have no idea what the percentages are), credit card links are not necessarily affiliated with bad blogs.
You define the worst blogs as those that push frequently, but that's not what the majority of newbs think. And they make up a fair amount of clicks.

benzemalyonnais

All the blogs are now pushing the Frequent Traveler University. I think it's a nice idea to meet others and such, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not just a bunch of marketing and another excuse to sell their 'brand'.

Astrophsx

You are going to have three types of bloggers.

1) The less popular bloggers that just post whatever content they can.

2) Bloggers that the FT community tend to enjoy that do not push credit card referrals as much.

3) Bloggers that gear their website for the general audience and push hard for credit card referrals even when it is not in the best interest of their readers. These bloggers get away with this by stating that they are giving the best available deal on a particular card, and not what they may personally advise a friend or family member to sign up for. They also go out of their way to make a connection with their readers. The most successful method seems to be incorporating family. By showing that you are a family person and just out there to help other people such as yourself.. you create a level of trust with the reader.

84fiero

And many (most?) of the FTU presenters are the CC-pushing blog types.

Scottrick

That's an interesting thought. There are a couple seminars that are specifically about card churning and category bonuses. I've never attended them because it sounds boring. They are led by the people you would expect. I'll say that Frequent Miler does a pretty good job of keeping the links out of the picture. But I wonder how many of the presenters make an effort to pitch their own links during the session.

I think most readers realize what's up and patronize the person who's been most helpful. If you have an opportunity to speak, that certainly puts your name in front of a lot of people who will now label you as helpful. And since I'd estimate about half of any conference is newbies, those are also people who will be applying for all the big cards (with the highest bonuses) for the first time and are looking for a link to click on.

My perspective on the affiliate game and the travel blog game in general is that it can be very hard to break into the top ranks. Once you do, there's money to be had, but not as much before then. If Chase has a threshold, for example, it might not accept you until you have the traffic to support X number of sales worth a couple thousand dollars a month in commissions. So it's a bump from zero to several thousand overnight. It's great when you hit that threshold, but very hard to stay motivated leading up to it.

sbm12

The hosting costs are trivial. I even offer it for free for anyone who wants to start a blog. The hard part about keeping a blog going is not the design or hosting work. It is producing the content.

Always has been.

As for the FTU events and CC sessions, I don't attend them either though I did briefly participate in one of them at the FTU in Rutherford. Bring the guy who doesn't churn and doesn't spend the effort on that aspect of the programs was an interesting position on the panel. I'd gladly do it again, but I suspect that won't happen.

metoo

Best useful site is when the blogger first start out and share fun stories and next to free traveling tips. Once famous, the shift is to write about travel credit cards so you can "click" on the link and commission is received by the blogger.

My favorite is Flyertalk.com, the site I first started. No personal gain and greed for trying to sell me their credit card link.