Want to know what the big-time buzz is amongst wine country bloggers this week? Someone out there in the grape-growing homeland of Northern Sonoma County is actually offering to pay for posts. Shock and amazement. It's not often that a budget of any denomination surfaces in the blogging arena. You name your top few blog reads and I'll wager a bet that only those employed to bolster the sagging coffers of the mainstream media are making much of a paycheck.
There are certainly some stand-out success stories where bloggers have carved out a specific niche to warrant the hundreds of thousands of hits to justify an advertising draw, but most bloggers, like myself, do it to bolster multi-platform pontifications of writing prowess (you're not supposed to know what that means, don't worry!). Or maybe we simply have too much to say!
Still, there's a rather tempting gig currently being touted around the blogosphere from one locally-based, blogger's site to another (and clear across the country for that matter) - that of an in-house blog job as Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent for Sonoma County's very own Murphy-Goode Winery.
This was one slick move by the marketing folk at Murphy-Goode, who borrowed the idea from Australia's Queensland (Great Barrier Reef) Tourism and have bought themselves a spectacular fifteen minutes of widespread, wine-world fame by offering a sixth-month gig to live and work in the heart of viticultural heaven up in Healdsburg, blogging, podcasting, facebooking and twittering to the hearts content. For ten grand a month.
With wine and lifestyle blogger's eyes boggling in unison at keyboards across the country at the very thought of working for pay, vine-studded, scenic accommodation and wine, it should be a fun headhunting episode to follow on-line. For applicants are required to make a promo video of themselves pitching their credentials. For those who fancy putting themselves on Murphy-Goode's website with all the other wannabe Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondents, this will be the wine country's first on-line reality show of sorts.
That's not to say that I don't think it a cool idea. What is really, truly awesome about Murphy-Goode's campaign is that it brings a bit of glamour to the blogosphere and illustrates the fundamental value of great blogging in today's fast changing market for news and lifestyle features.
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