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Ok people, it’s time for my semi-regular “I’m an idiot” confessional. I really do love writing for this site and don’t intend to give it up. It’s a really fun hobby and I feel like in some small way I provide entertainment and perhaps value for some people.
Don’t get me wrong, the site takes effort, and that’s something I’ve lacked in these past few weeks. I could blame this on the fact that I’m looking to rent a new place, or the fact that I have around 70 comics piled up on a shelf waiting to be read, or the fact that I’m loaded up with side work… or even the visitors that have been gracing my front steps. But I don’t think any of those excuses are the real reasons for the almost nonexistent postings.
I feel the real reason I’ve been so late in posting is that I’m starting to feel like it’s a side job, and I don’t want that to happen. Writing reviews or articles is easy enough, and checking out site stats is fun. The hard and time consuming part of this site are the press releases. They take a long time to reformat (Marvel just can’t seem to send well formatted paragraphs… and boy do they love their capitol letters), the photos have to be resized and placed in to lightbox containers, and they come in on a daily bases (usually 3 a day) so if I don’t keep up with them, they pile up very quickly.
So all this work gets put in to something that basically boils down to an advertisement. I feel like I’m doing all this work for Marvel and Image and really not seeing any return of investment outside of decent traffic that these “articles” drive to my site. These press releases are available on many other websites, including their originator’s sites.
So now I turn to you for advice. Do you really care about the press releases? Should I nix these and concentrate on delivering better original content more often, or do you actually enjoy getting your “news” from my site?
Your thoughts and opinions are much appreciated on this matter.
Just before joining the 9rules Network I decided to abandon the posting of press releases in their standard form. I feel this is a cheap way to blog. However, there is also some valuable information in the press releases that I receive, and I wanted to be able to bring…
“Should I nix these and concentrate on delivering better original content more often?”
You don’t even have to ask that. It’s what everyone wants.
That’s what I’m hoping as well. It seems the logical solution being that the press releases don’t really provide anything unique.
I just want to hear it from other before I shoot it in the head.
F#@$ the press releases. I want some original content (reviews, opinions and personal news) from you. That’s why I read this blog. That’s the whole point of blogs. Thanks for all your hard work.
Originality for sure!
I can only second Kris and the other guys above! Original content, take your time, give us what YOU think about stuff and no canned food. We can read that on every of those commercialized site.
Well that’s that then. No more press releases. I have nixed the Press Released section from the side bar… no more marvel spin on this site!
Onward to fresh content…
I’ve just discovered Freakcomics but I share the same point of view… I’m not lokkin here for an other news site.
[...] A short time ago I asked you guys whether or not I should keep posting news articles. A few people replied and said no. While I agree that having news posts in the main section of this site is rather dumb (this site is supposed to be all about original content) I really do want to provide the latest news to my readers. This has been a problem in times past due to time constraints. [...]