Gather

I'm trying out a new blog spot (not BlogSpot), gather.com, after reading an article about it in today's Globe, with this sub-head,

Mass. startup to pay writers

Ah, yes, maybe. But the article and gather.com itself are a little vague exactly how that's going to happen. Apparently gather.com is planning - at some point - to share advertising revenue with popular writers. Currently, what they're doing (according to their FAQ) is...

You'll get Gather Points(TM) just for participating on the site. Inviting new users and submitting outstanding content will earn you points. And Gather Points(TM) are your currency to purchase goods and services from your favorite Gather partners.

I posted the Google and You Get article at a page I created at gather.com, will probably toss them other things that are languishing both here and in my files, and we'll see if I get any action. As enticing as the idea is for anyone who posts regularly, I usually try to stay away from the "getting paid to blog" Siren's sweet song. My working life is probably a little different from the average blogger; I already get paid to write. And after a session of trying to make service-oriented architecture, or application modernization, or whatever happens to be the latest hot thing in I.T. palatable to the non-technical reader, I'm ready to use fhb to relax. No deadline pressures; little self-editing; no agonies about developing the next article.

On the other hand, I've always tried to live my professional life by Samuel Johnson's dictum, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote for anything but money." But I'm not thinking of leaving Blogger any time soon. As I said, fhb gives me the luxury of an on-line journal where I don't really have to worry about content and audience (although I really do appreciate all those family and friends that regularly check in to see what I have to say), and that's too valuable an outlet to give up.