13151318_e2f5c8eacd_m Today.com Expat My sallie into the blogosphere began at Today.com, a paid blogging service.  While it looked like it could be a fun little side job that would provide a little pin money and increase my self reliance, that turned out to not be the case.  It was a great deal more like sending away for Sea Monkeys or signing up to assemble products at home.

Recently, Today.com employed a slash-and-burn approach to the bloggers who have provided all the content on their site, after implementing a number of difficult to deal with changes in their policy and greatly lowering the pay of a huge number of bloggers including many (some speculate most) of their top 100 bloggers.  Anyone who so much as sought clarity or expressed chagrin, regardless of the popularity or focus of the blog, discovered they could no longer log in and received an e-mail from staff stating:

We understand that you are unhappy blogging with Today.com.
As such we will be closing out your account for you. Your
blog earnings to date will be sent to you in the next pay
cycle.

We want to thank you for trying out Today.com and are sorry
the program has not lived up to your expectations. We
certainly wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,
Today.com Support

…no warning, no discussion, no recourse.  There was also a post in the forums indicating that any Today.com blogger who made a forum or blog post that staff perceived as negative would be kicked out of the program and forfeit any unpaid earnings.

Those of us—and it turns out that there are many of us!—who are no longer affiliated with Today.com have looked the situation over and decided that ultimately being left to our own devices is probably not a bad thing.  In the interest of supporting each other and our independent blogs, many of us are putting up blog posts and pages like this one.  I’d also like to invite guest bloggers for The How and Why of Self Reliance; if you are interested in putting up a post that has to do with any aspect of self reliance, give a shout out, I’d be please to host your post and provide you with more backlinks!

If you are an ex-Today.com blogger, please put your old Today.com blog along with your indie blog in a comment below, and I’ll get you added to the Blogging After Today.com blog roll to your left.  Feel free to add your primary key words.  You can also be added to ex-Today.com blog rolls at LOST for a reason, Hospitalera’s Blog (no longer Golden Prague), Bookishgal, 30 Something And Searching, Tv News and Reviews, and Just Flitting.  If you have a blog roll for those no longer blogging at Today.com, let me know and I’ll add a link to your ‘add me’ spot.

Community building is an important aspect of self reliance, and I’m looking forward to helping to develop a supportive, self reliant network of independent bloggers!

WordPress Plugin