Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 142

Today in Photo

In #Jaipur for, I kid you not, a shopping expedition. On the list: fabric, silver and pottery. I'm not super wealthy at the moment (who is, who is) , but I did buy a few things I love like these silver and pearl earrings and this fish motif toe ring which I'm wearing on my finger. #traveldiary

via Instagram

Bitesize: Why I'm not going to fix you up

You need to stop asking.Storified by Meenakshi Madhavan · Fri, Sep 25 2015 06:02:30

Y’know when you try to fix guy friends up & you’re like, “So-and-so is really smart & fun & kind” & they wait & say, “but is she HOT?"— Meenakshi Madhavan · Tue, Sep 22 2015 13:32:09

And you know that they’re hoping for legs up to the sky supermodels & your friend is so lovely, lovelier than this guy.— Meenakshi Madhavan · Tue, Sep 22 2015 13:32:42

But your friend is not a supermodel & screw you, Guy, for having such exacting standards for women that all the rest of it is negated.— Meenakshi Madhavan · Tue, Sep 22 2015 13:33:16

Before I’d say, “Yeah, she’s pretty but..” & now I say, “Yes, she’s beautiful” because fuck you.— Meenakshi Madhavan · Tue, Sep 22 2015 13:33:59

My friend is kind & smart & important & you know what? She’s sooo much better looking than you are.— Meenakshi Madhavan · Tue, Sep 22 2015 13:34:55

so fuck society that says men can do better and women can do worse. fuck that & rethink why you’re attracted to people.— Meenakshi Madhavan · Tue, Sep 22 2015 13:35:22

Today in Photo

Bit grumpy because my laptop repair didn't hold and now it's back at the shop. My Peanut character generator! Although, I'm such a fan of the strip, I'm not sure I'll watch the movie this is advertising for because it'll probably dumb it down and ruin it. Good grief. #peanuts #funthings

via Instagram

Today in Photo

My spirit human is definitely the Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey. She cracks me up, man. When she's like, "what is a weekend?" Hah! That always makes me laugh. I'm the same, I'm like, "what is a Monday?" also I like the way she bosses her servants. It's inspired me to boss mine more. - Squishy, Nizamuddin #catsofdelhi #blackcatsofinstagram

via Instagram

It's a free ride, when you've already paid

I don’t actually want to pay for the news. Why should I? Everything I need is served up to me for free. And that’s not just the news websites. It’s my social media feed that blinks rapidly 140 characters upon another telling me about an earthquake or a fire or an announcement someone just made.

On the other hand, this is how I make my living. I write words for an audience, and the audience is meant to pay for my words. I have a dog in this fight, as it were, and it makes sense that my money comes from the people who read me. However, it doesn’t, for the most part. If I—as a writer—want free news and free articles—what is the incentive for someone who does not do this to pay rent to want to pay me? After all, my need for free news overcomes the need I have to read something, no matter how good, and if faced by a paywall on a website, I click away, thinking I’ll come back to it next month for my quota of five free articles. I am a traditionalist when it comes to paying for my news: I pay for three newspapers and one magazine, somehow the idea of paying for something and having it arrive at your doorstep is a concept I understand more than the far more ephemeral idea of paying for a web link to load. Where’s the thing to touch online, how can I hold it, it’s just a concept, and concepts are hard to put money behind.
All this because I’ve been reading articles lately on small news websites about how if you like the content of a website, you shouldn’t have an ad blocker enabled. The ad blocker stops ads, the website doesn’t get a revenue, but apart from that, the experience is fuss-free and beautiful. No annoying products in your face, no auto music that loads as soon as you click on an article, why would anyone not have an ad-blocker?
Advertising and the internet go together. As advertisers figure out how to best reach their consumers, they tie up with content creators to “borrow” their audience as it were. I have had a blog for the past eleven years, which has a fairly good readership for a personal blog, which everyone knows is a dying art form. In its heyday, it got as many as 2000 to 5000 visitors per day. Now, at a more modest 500 average, it’s still fairly widely read, but the total income I’ve made from Google ads in the last decade is a princely sum of $100. It was then I started to realize that traditional models of advertising were not going to work for me. I do my blog as a labour of love, something I enjoy doing, and in return it also works as public relations for me. If I want to announce a new book, my blog readers can read about it, and click a link to follow  through and buy something. I also received a book deal from the blog, and several writing assignments. But making money traditionally off the blog didn’t seem like something that would happen to me, until both I and the advertisers figured out something called native advertising. In un-commercial-jargon, this is when you place the content for an ad within a text post, an advertorial, as it were, and serve it up as regular blog content, which your readers should click through on, thus spreading the message further than an ad which could be ignored (or blocked.) I began by marking these “sponsored posts,” but of late, people who wanted my words or my audience, want me to make the tags smaller and smaller, so it’s only when you read the post that you figure out its motive.
Other bloggers have been doing this for far longer than I –and with far greater subtlety. But as a reader as well as a writer, I checked with my audience to see if they’d be okay with getting the occasional sponsored post, since it kept the bread on my table. Overwhelmingly, the response was positive. “You do what you have to do,” said one commenter, “And people can either read the post or not.” With the backing of my readers, I was able to monetize myself---not greatly, not multi-millionaire certainly (I lack the business-negotiating gene)—and the money started to trickle in, little by little. It’s only not coming through in a torrential flood because I decided that I’d only do it for a certain amount of money, otherwise it would not be worth my time. Think of it like tattooing your baby with sponsored stickers. You’d only do it if the tattoo came with a nice price tag. Otherwise, why ruin your baby?

The downside of sponsored posts are of course, the insidious nature of them, when someone doesn’t clearly mark them out as advertorials (big websites like Buzzfeed are guilty of this), and you’re reading content which is basically an ad, but no way to figure that out till it comes to an end. What is a content creator to do? A micro-subscription model seems to be the best answer. No ads, and you pay directly for the website to hire writers you’d like to read. Everyone wins. The problem is, would you pay? If so, how much? And if no one wants to pay, we’ll be forced to read ads after ads, our news experience completely sullied by how much money a major company has paid a website to be on their side. 

(A version of this appeared as my column)

Today in Photo

Here's a #nofilter #bhopal sunset. We're back to Delhi tonight on a teeny tiny plane. Spent the evening at the gorgeous national park/zoo, and now a quick drink overlooking the lake before we go home.

via Instagram

Today in Photo

More from yesterday's visit to the Museum of Man. This is a Bhil hut, complete with termite eaten wood posts on the outside. You could walk right in and look at the layout--most tribals prefer to have the cooking area also be where the Goddess hangs out but I think it's the Bhils where everyone in the tribe shares one central courtyard where they gather every evening. #installation #bhopal #traveldiary

via Instagram

Today in Photo

Well. Bhopal is full of surprises. #questionablechoices #traveldiary

via Instagram

Today in Photo

The Bhopal Tribal Museum or Museum of Man, to give it it's accurate name, turned out to be that lovely thing: a complete surprise. People told me it was nice, but I was expecting cheesy, not these life size completely accurate installations of Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh tribals. Even the smell was accurate, as the artists used material only found in their villages. Photo one of many: a life size representation of a bridal bracelet, given to a bride on her wedding night and decorated with symbols of her new home. #traveldiary #museum #bhopal

via Instagram

Today in Photo

Spent the morning at the Bhopal State Museum quite by accident as the tribal museum I really wanted to visit was closed till noon. It's quite a vast place, but I had the most fun at the archives section where I peeped into people's letters. Clockwise from top: a description of Aruna Asaf Ali (who I know only from "Marg") where she is reported to have had her hair bobbed in Bombay, Prithvi Theatre just started up and wants to travel through Bhopal without paying entertainment tax (the Nawab agrees but says come after Ramzan), the first ever meeting of the Supreme Court, followed by a tea party and the King Of England graciously allows the Nawab of Bhopal to rule. #history #traveldiary

via Instagram