Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Seven Quintessential Question

The non-existent moral high ground

The next quintessential question has got to do with the basis of their TOS. Turmoil is obviously brewing now in Nuffnang, from the implementing of $1, a mild one, to the allocation of advertisements to the earnings of bloggers.

What form the basis of Nuffnang’s operation? The answer to this question is the very reason why bloggers want to join them as a publisher of their advertisement. We must continue to study reasons behind their TOS so as to have a distinct and clarity in clearing the doubts as to the crux of the matter thus far. Many of us will have all kinds of different opinions about what is the motive behind every move of Nuffnang. We will disagree often enough to make each other look very stupid. However there is one thing we do not want is to be part of an internet company in the same genre of “Get Rich Scheme” now pervasive in the internet. What I am presenting is also the very same thing all bloggers want to avoid: to investigate and study possible fraud before it contaminate the community further, fraud is not avoided by simply of its existence by genesis but the persistent study which those promises stand upon.

In this era of internet, bloggers want to monetize their blogs and to do so; one of the good ways is to join an online advertising company that can provide strong advertising rewards. The rewards should not be dressed in appearance by promises, but supported by the pillar that will deliver the promises. The TOS of a company must be free to be question and make believe its honesty dealing with the blogging public. Bloggers are not consumers of the company and until the company can understand that bloggers need more than all things façade.

All the more bloggers must question, and Nuffnang must answer intensely, so that their existence can be proven to be reliable and trustworthy. Whatever appear to be causes of changing of the TOS, the agreement of the transaction must be done so with notification.

Let there be no question that no two companies are the same, but a bad shape of a company is always due to massive discontent!

Bloggers may be convinced to swallow a bitter pill. Bloggers may be convinced to hang a logo waiting for advertisements, but let there be no question that for bloggers to endure seeing high traffic bloggers earning, the company’s leadership must be seen to deliver its promise of sharing the pie with tail end’s community as it promised.

Have the lesson of changing TOS being so lost, that they could no longer justify even why they want to charge $1 per cheque? The responsibility of the company is not giving bloggers a sense of fairness in purpose? The more discontent there were, the more the owners needs to be compensated by charging more money? And in due course, whatever you desire for the bloggers to swallow, be it the pill of sequestration of the registrants by their blog traffics or charging fees without authentic justification, Nuffnang now do not have the moral high ground. Are the owners so disconnected that they failed to see that they have lost the high ground to charge even an extra $1 from bloggers?

The justification of charging $1 does not have logic of a well reasoned platter of how bloggers are benefiting from it even they reduced cashing out amount to $50. Bloggers do not buy your justification if they found it to be not linear to an expectant inference.

To understand the value of able to cash out at $50, we see how much Nuffnang receives by each cash out when they amend their TOS.

When a blogger cash out $100 in 2 cheques, Nuffnang receives $2 in fees which in actual fact is $1 bank charge and $1 into their pocket.

If they had not amend the TOS and withdrawal stays at $100, and a blogger were to cash out $100 in one cheque, Nuffnang receives $1 in fees which in actual fact is 50 cent bank charge and 50cent into their pocket.

Now they want you to withdraw more often for no other reason than because they had now invented this thing very cleverly where they rewrite their rules and arbitrage on every cheque that was delivered to you. It became a win-win situation but the lost on the blogger account was cleverly buried.

Likewise, if they had not amend the TOS to change the withdrawal amount to $50 and had pass on the bank charges to bloggers, then no arbitraging occurs.

But if they had amended the TOS to charge you $1 but withdrawal remains at $100, they would pocket 50cent per $100 withdrawal. What if they allow bloggers to withdraw twice in the form of $50? That means they made double the figure which is $1.

Now they want you to withdraw more! The more the merrier! Hence the lower of withdrawal amount.

A company lower itself to this level of integrity is risking discordance with every stratum within the blogging community. Can a company profiting in obscene quantum together with celebrity bloggers amend the TOS to charge bloggers more than it should and let itself bath in newly acquired wealth and opulence? I do not know.

This Seven quintessential question for your representative: Did Nuffnang have a moral high ground, given its business with extremely big corporations, to change its TOS to benefit itself rather than bloggers, many who had not even made money with Nuffnang?

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Quotes

To accuse this site of being the cause of Nuffnang's corporate behaviour is like the proverbial shooting of the messenger (of bad news)- Harry

No amount of media coverage or publicity can cover up for the lack of deliverance, in my blog at least. If any more friends (especially those with unique visits lesser than mine) ask me about Nuffnang, two words - FORGET IT! - Endoh

Maybe the person concern should reflect more on itself- Claudia

I got an ad this week! Can I boost earnings by asking more friends/visitors to visit my blog? According to Nuffnangs faq, What you earn depends on the number of Average Unique visitors you received in the week before your ad campaign is served. So by the time you know you got an ad coming, its too late to boost the stats. So play hard on your blog every week, not only on the week ads are served. That should keep you on your toes! - Anonymous

If a blog has lower traffic, we cannot ask the advertiser to pay fortunes for it. They pay based on how much traffic a blog gets.- Boss Stewie

... my latest Nuffnang Nike ad only garnered me.....$1.70 PUI!!!! Not even enough for Laurens daily allowance.- Honeymeow

An envelope also doesnt cost 20 cents, where do you buy your envelopes? If you want to charge $1.00, dont tell people its because of this and that, just charge it against their earnings. No one, except you, know how much they are making anyway. So why make the charge visible and risk the ire of the community? Consider that so many of the bloggers carrying your banner are giving you FREE advertising and at the same time giving you the means in which to make a living (without them you have nothing). - Entrepreneur | October 7th, 2007 at 8:28 pm

Labour includes time taken to print out the letter, verify the amount, pack it, and send it off. Labour is more or less subsidised and free in this instance. - Boss Ming

Whilst my peers are making money in comfy jobs in banks or consultancy firms, I have to rely on my family to support my mobile phone bill. Taking an allowance at the age of 24 is not exactly my cup of tea. - Boss Ming

In addition to this there is the postage fee, which by 1st local is 25 cents each (for a stamp). The envelope costs 20 cents each. This brings it up to 95 cents, which means 5 cents for the paper, ink and labour. - Boss Ming

Ive been hosting a Nuffnang banner on my blogs for almost 6 month. Until now I only earn RM1.40 from Firefly Skyscraper 2 which being displayed on my blogs from 01 Jul 2007 - 07 Jul 2007. I really don’t know why Nuffnang can’t gives me the good earning eventhough my blogs traffic is good enough - Anonymous

I also had quite a shock discovery in the past. I ran Nuffnang & Advertlets around the same time, interchanging their banner positions for experiment. 1 month later, while advertlets was earning RM100 (i did not do review for them), Nuffnang gave me only 20 cents! What a mystery. It still has not solved until today. Ppl say I didn’t earn much from nuffnang because of the low traffic but I doubt so. - Zul

With so many thousands(up to 10,000) of blogs *as claimed*, only a hundred or less blogs are selected to advertise. Where do the rest fit in? Nowhere. And so for 80-100% of the time, the remaining thousands run free advertisements for Nuffnang that screams at the eye 'I Serve Nuffnang Ads'. The waiting time is ridiculous and eventually if any, there is not enough Ads to get a Pay Cheque Out because of the minimum sum of $50 to withdraw plus the deduction of $1 for Administrative fee. - Molemole

Have you ever attended any Blog Parties organised by Nuffnang and got to meet other bloggers? Then again... most events (if any) are reserved for people 'closer' to Nuffnang's Co-owner aka Ming. You can almost guess who they are from the Feature Bloggers in the Web. They almost always appear at all Events and huddle together in one group that is almost impossible to penetrate or if you do, meet the hostile glare that says - we're in the middle of our own conversation and you're not welcomed, and you are made to look awkwardly out of place.- MoleMole

I have been using Nuffnang as part of my online monetization tools on one my high traffic blogs for quiet some time now and I am not at all happy with it! :-( I can’t believe that I only earned a pathetic Malaysian 0.30 cents from it. It is utterly ridiculous! I even made more money from Advertlets! I made the decision to totally remove my Nuffnang ads from my high traffic blog a few days back. -Homebis

Congrats on hitting 4k members. Having more members does push your operational cost up. But at the same time, the profits should be increasing at the same rate-if not higher. So if Nuffnang is able to increase their profits the same rate as their membership, then there shouldn't be any problems already. Right? But if Nuffnang is unable to increase their profits at the same rate as their membership, then I think even the $1 transaction fee isnt going to help the company in the long run. Is having more members pulling the company down? - Anonymous

Ming, if you have not get paid from advertisers, then will you return back us $1 when you finally get paid? - Sharon

Boasting about how much advertising they have to bloggers isnt exactly the right mentality to have. No matter how much advertisers you have, are of no meaning to blogger if they arent getting the adverts. Maybe applicable to high end blogs but please be sensitive to lower end. - Bupa

Please stay humble and not telling bloggers you have so much advertisers, if you really really have so much advertisers, then give us some advertisement!! - Cheeze

Ming - We have decided not to comment on the $1 issue, primarily because we feel it will divide the blogosphere and fan the flames of controversy.

Coward -Then why are you commenting here since you said your company decided not to comment on this issue? I see you commenting at several other blogs too. It seems to me that you are only commenting on your supporters blog and not your critics. Weird move I must say.

Timothy - Our clients welcomed us through the door and today we run campaigns for Maxis, DiGi, Honda, Nokia, Nestle, Uniliver, HUGO, Air Asia... you name it.

Coward -Tim, please stay humble, dont let these few adverts get into your head. You havent achieve nothing with these advertisers though i must say they are big companies. You should look at how those tail end bloggers are not benefitting from you doesnt matter you can attract the biggest company in the world

What is Nuffnangs stand? Are low traffic bloggers not worthy of any ads? If that is the case, why the 20 unique visitors limit? Why not raise it to 1000 unique visitors? The reason why this whole issue blow up to this scale is because nobody from Nuffnang came out to address the concern raised by the small time bloggers. Are small time bloggers not worthy a respond from Nuffnang? Is Nuffnang only for celebrity bloggers? Wait… I might not get a respond for this question too. After all, my daily traffic is too low.-Decay

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