Wishing Upon A Star

I need a benefactor. I believe they used to be all the fashion back in the day of Yates and co.

A benefactor would be most useful indeed, but sadly they are more rare than an honest MP these days.

I have a list of a couple of bits of kit I would like to get that would allow me to expand the coverage of stuff I have on this blog and my main one (whitespider1066.com) , plus be useful in a new blog project I am planning to start up in the next couple of weeks and my day to day work.

So what are these items of desire that I would find useful?

Well the first is the object of desire for many an Apple Fanboy (oh yes I am one of them, I drink from Steve Jobs Kool Aid), the iPad. Several of the outdoor mapping companies have released iOS4 (ie iPhone) apps. Some have even released versions that run specifically for the iPad. Plus with outdoors publishers also starting to dip their toes in the electronic book world, there is enough going on in the iPad world that needs covering. Let alone talking about how the iPad can be used in the education sector, or for photography. So this is a very very exciting product to look at, and want to cover. No one is covering it on an outdoors context at the moment. I would love to be the first. But I know that I will be piped on that front.

The second is a Google Android phone, like the Desire,Nexus One or Droid X. Yes I know how can I be an Apple Fanboy and still want one of these? But that fact aside, to be able to also talk about relevant apps on Android as well as iOS4 would be great. It’s another area that no one seems to be covering in the outdoors, and to be able to cover it’s usage along side the iPhone will just add more value to the information I can offer when I talk mobiles in the outdoors. My posterous account would be rebranded to be mobile photography blog, and be the home of photos taken on the iPhone 4 and the Google Android phone

There is a third, but this is totally blue sky dreaming, and that is a dSLR camera, and a selection of lenses. I’d love to get to grips with one of these and see what directions it would take my photography.

But in reality I know there aren’t benefactors out there these days for bloggers. We have to fund our own purchases and if we can’t afford the kit that we want then we go without. What we have here is wishful thinking. A nice day dream.

Some bloggers are lucky (for want of a better way of describing it,)  and able to get an income from their blog that can either cover their costs or even luckier enable them to buy new gear as and when they like.

I know I don’t carry adverts on my blogs, well the amounts I would earn would be miniscule. This blog for example is the equivalent of plankton in a sea of tech blogs. The reason I write it is because it gives me an outlet for my tech ramblings when I have something to to say on the subject that just isn’t outdoors related.

And although my main blog has significantly more readers than this blog, still there are no ads on there. Compare to some of the more popular subject areas or magazine backed blogs my main blog still has a relatively small readership.

But truth be told I have not really been interested in having ads on my blogs, as I like to give ad free content. I also like to give free content. Yes I am one of those internet types. For me I get my kick out of others enjoying and getting a use out of the stuff I write or have photographed.

Sadly this utopian point of view doesn’t put food on the plate and keep a roof over the head as I was reminded during my two year spell of being unemployed.

But this charging for content , and people consuming it for free is an age old problem, in a favourite book of mine The Autobiography of a Supertramp by W.H. Davies, he writes in the 1923 Foreward to the book “…I have come to the conclusion that if only one quater of my readers had been buyers instead of borrowers, I would now be worth half a street, perhaps a castle,island, or a full-masted ship.”

A very good friend of mine who has been a journalist and publisher for decades, who I admire and respect greatly, often asks me “and how much did I get paid for that post?”

I will always keep my content free, because it’s something I believe in deeply. I like the sharing. There has been toying with the idea of a tip jar, but then I think would it be worth the effort? Would people be generous and tip, or would I be sympathising with W.H. Davies?

In the absence of a benefactor or a lottery win, I will have to think creatively, scrimp and save to get the items mentioned above. If in the meantime others start covering these areas then so be it. I will enjoy reading their coverage, which will inspire and give me further ideas for my own coverage when it starts.