Peter Caputa: Where's my check?

I like Peter Caputa. He's reached out to me a number of times. Today he writes a piece on structured blogging/datablogging where he says:

But, like Greg Yardley, I want to know "Where the money is?" If pubsub or other Broadband Mechanic's customers like GoingOn are going to be making cash (somehow) by aggregating my content, I want a piece of it.

If your answer is that we get better search and discovery capabilities, that's not enough. I am building your business. Where's my check?

Yep, you have a right to ask for value in some form. To me your question and pre-emptive answer rebuttle highlights the fact that the current blogosphere is completely geared towards the network, community and publishing side of things. While I truly find making these global data connections exciting, I also know that there's a much more personal side of datablogging/structured blogging.

Mining your own personal data is valuable in and of itself. I hope this soap box re-gifting isn't disrespectful... I'd be more than happy to do a new soap boxing rant just for you... but I already did one for Josh Bokardo that applies to the same issue of where bloggers get value from datablogging.

Now, is personal data mining valuable enough for you to pay cold hard cash so that I can run a business? Or do I need to sell aggregated depersonalized targeted advertising to Adidas? Only time will tell, but the market will sort it out. Some toolmakers/hosting providers will abuse the data... they'll get a bad rap and lose market share. Others will be smart about it and as they cut deals to broker data they'll keep posts like Peter's in mind... they'll make sure that the balance of user value is there. Some more re-gifting of ,a href='http://joereger.com/entry-eventid4462.log'>datablogging + direct marketing.

Providing value to users as we work with data shouldn't be that hard. People wanting to advertise know that they need to come to people with offers that they want. In general I believe that the more you share with marketers the better they'll be at giving you smart offers. Maybe that's hard to swallow. Maybe it's completely wrong. But I know a lot of marketers and they're not evil... they're frustrated that they can't create better, more targeted offers for people.

And revenue share to users? Certainly something I've thought about. The biggest hurdle for me so far is the getting revenue part :) But micropayment technologies are coming along nicely. I can certainly see a day where Reger.com users have a button called "Pay Me To Target Me." By clicking that button they agree to have their data included in advertiser queries for the placement of offers. For every offer that an advertiser places using their data they get some share of the revenue. Peter's message is loud and clear... but it's also common sense... at least to me because I've been hosting structured data for a long time.

The model may be much harder for aggregators to adhere to. PubSub can consume (if the user agrees to allow them to) structured data from Reger.com blogs. They can then build services on top of it. But they don't already have a relationship with the user. How do they get payment back to them when they don't even know them?

As always Peter, keep up the great blogging. I read your stuff every day and always appreciate it in light of the way that you've reached out to me.