Astrophsx

He actually speaks in a somewhat robotic voice with a "nerdy" tone to it. Kind of painful to watch when he is a cable news panel.

gobluetwo

I do. And I don't wear a monocle, extend my right pinky, and speak with a nasal British accent, either. Just an ethnic kid born and raised in the deep south (of the United States), is all.

JetAway

What is that suppose to mean? Do you expect him to fake a 'Hood accent?

Astrophsx

I can see it now... Ben telling his friends and acquaintances how he has a dedicated area where people gossip about his blog. That he must be doing an awesome job if the worse feedback he has is about writing like white person..

Take it or leave it Ben has been going since 2009 and while most of us didn't think he would be able to sustain the blog and perhaps move on to something new. His blog is what you make of it. There are a subset of people in this hobby that care more about flying than they do about exploring the culture in each city/country.

He is one of the few blogs I still check regularly on my stream. I'm glad he hasn't sold out like TPG and enjoy content posted by Tiffany. After you accept the faults of the blog it's still a worthy read as I don't see one blog out there that covers all areas. OMATT, DoctorOfCredit, FrequentMiler, Travel is Free, The Flight Deal, etc...

I'd say a majority of people on here who post negative and the infrequent positive posts are still fans of the blog. It is just easier to post about the faults of the blog, mistakes, and when we don't agree. Or, maybe we are to the point where we take more pleasure in complaining?

kokonutz

The posting metrics on this thread...on this forum...are way down. Only 3 posts in all of October.

My company has a $20M ad budget and we've just made the decision to stop paying bloggers for coverage in '18. Advertising consultants are telling us that we're on the tail end of the bloggers phenomenon as social media influencers. I imagine it's even worse in the credit card blogging space with all the restrictions banks now have in place.

I hope Ben has a healthy savings and investments portfolio.^

JonNYC

Maybe a hopeful sign that Ben's megacritics here realized just how petty and stalky they were being.

kokonutz

The opposite of love is not hate....those are similar emotions as both demonstrate passion. And passion = $$$. Those 'megacritics' were money in the bank for Ben.

The opposite of love is indifference. And that's what we are seeing here. @:-)

Raffles

I suggest you're doing it wrong then. The day that a newspaper or TV station will give you free slots in return for 3% of the value of products sold - which is the standard blog affiliate model - is not coming. A company needs to be dumb beyond belief if you don't see the benefit of having someone else take ALL the financial risk of marketing your business in return for a paltry handout on sales (not even leads, but firm sales) generated

Of course, if you're paying some Instagrammer with 1m fake followers $20k to run a photo of your product you deserve all that comes to you. Apart from TPG, however, no one in this space works that way.

eponymous_coward

Well, he's a child of a small business owner, he's been generating income since his teens, and he's engaged to an Ivy League graduate.

I suspect he's going to be just fine. Your concern for his well being is touching. If I didn't know better, I'd guess it was the usual snark about bloggers this forum is famous for instead of genuine concern.

PS: Have you disabled AdBlocker yet? FT needs you! Because they're not in the least bit motivated by commercial concerns unlike those nasty bloggers! They are working very hard to provide us with the best content, and are making it special for us!

kokonutz

I was only party to some of the discussions around the decision. But I do know that choosing between newspaper/TV ads and paying bloggers for content is a false choice. We are investing more in other social media platform influencers. These days any social media platform can be treated like a blog because that is where people are listening. Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook. It's the 'Trump effect,' a stand-alone blog is just too long-form and isolated from the social media stream.

That's what the marketing gurus tell us, anyway...

And we are rounding that out with digital advertising and experiential marketing. Still have some TV in the mix, but it's a fraction of the budget.

Boy, talk about snark. I wish the guy well and get 3 paragraphs of finger wagging punctuated with two rolleyes.

craigthemif

Marketing gurus, like investment bankers, ambulance chasing lawyers, etc. are mostly interested in what gets money flowing into their own bank accounts. So if the latest thing is social media and that isn't understood well by the people managing the budget (who are generally too old to have a Snapchat account for example), then that's what gets pitched.

Who you really want is the nerdy guy in a back office who actually crunches the data. For example, wouldn't we really love to know what the number crunchers think of Marriott giving us 1,000 points every Sunday for a tweet...

Lack

Thy're probably thrilled with being able to 'sell' those tweets as brand exposure back to NFL, getting a nice break on their marketing budget.

AAExPlat

Ding Ding Ding! I have been managing marketing budgets as small as 2mio/year and as large as $40 mio/year...how social media or blogging or anything works depends heavily on the product or service you sell and it is something that changes all the time. A good senior marketing leader understands that and constantly tests new channels and optimizes the media budget. And nobody that truly understands anything about marketing makes blanket declarations about what works and what doesn't...if you meet someone who does, run as fast as you can.

eponymous_coward

Read your signature lately?

Let's just say I'm at least somewhat familiar with the players here in the thread I started way back when, now that I've decided to check back in. Opinions don't seem to have changed much and I agree with @JonNYC; this place likes diving into the petty and concerning itself with the personal rather than the actual blog content. The concern expressed seems a lot closer to concern trolling given that history, but OK, fine, you have heartfelt wishes for his well being. Great.

But I do sincerely think someone who's run a business since they were in their teens and has employed people at an age when a lot of peers are just starting to figure stuff out in college is probably going to do just fine. If the current business doesn't work out in a decade there's options; if he sets aside cash at a decent clip he might be able to retire early. Maybe he'll go back into luxury travel agent work. Who knows.

Astrophsx

So starting a thread deserves a pat on the back now-a-days?

"Now that I've decided to check back in" LOL Thank you for gracing us with your presence.