If I were a rich man .....
.... it wouldn't be from blogging. After all, my writings may seem random but I'm not Tom Reynolds, so unless Jakartass adds a cartoon strip or soduku puzzle then I doubt I'll get a book deal.

Still, as my phone bills are quite high ~ and I have a dial-up connection thanks to the fact that I live on the wrong side of the tracks, literally, to benefit from cable or wi-fi ~ I thought I'd investigate various schemes to get paid. If I cast my net wide enough, surely there's someone somewhere willing to pay for my pearls.

I've blogged this before but an article in the New Statesman, Bloggers For Hire, caught my eye so I thought I'd investigate further. Apparently there are several ways to bring in an income, although it does seem that bloggers whose social life revolves around malls would do best.

For Jakartass, given the choices the obvious way would be through PayPerPost.

PayPerPost's home page shows a youthful adman in a smart suit and with a cheeky grin - "He wants to create a buzz for his new product" - alongside a glamorous girl kicking back at a cool party - "She wants to make money". "You tell the blogger what you want him/her to post about," the advice for advertisers reads. "You can require the blogger to add photos to their post, write about experiences with your product; the possibilities are up to your imagination."

You may ignore the bit in the article that suggests that .... bloggers are school or college kids just trying to get laid. For them, the purity of the blogosphere is irrelevant. The idea of getting paid to chat about a soft drink seems absolutely fine.

Yeah, ignore that. I don't like soft drinks. Besides, I'm more of a key social figure in a neighbourhood or community who can be relied on to drop brand references into conversations or hold barbecues where I'll pepper the talk with praise for dusters or aftershave.


And, much as I just like to have something to talk about (like this article), you can be sure that I'd pick up my cheque, unlike some brand ambassadors.

PayPerPost need their Brand Blogging Ambassadors to have a PayPal account so obviously I tried to sign up. Almost inevitably, this being Indonesia, I found I couldn't. Naturally I left a message on their site.
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Customer Message: 'How do I sign up?

I have Indonesia's no 1 blog ~ http://jakartass.blogspot.com/ ~ but I'm British.and I'm interested in signing up.
I can't. WHY?'
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This was their standard reply.

----- Original Message -----
From: PayPal Community Support
To: Jakartass
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:48 PM
Subject: Re: SigningUp

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

We sincerely appreciate your interest in becoming a PayPal member. Unfortunately, we are not yet providing services for the country or region in question. Establishing our service in each new country or region involves complex changes due to different regulations. We hope to be expanding our availability, however, due to the complexities of global expansion, we cannot give a timeframe for this. We are working hard and look forward to expanding our services to additional countries and regions in the future.

At this time, membership is available to residents of the following countries and regions:

*Anguilla *Argentina *Australia *Austria *Belgium *Brazil *Canada *Chile *China *Costa Rica *Cyprus *Czech Republic *Denmark *Dominican Republic *Ecuador *Estonia *Finland *France *Germany *Greece *Hong Kong *Hungary *Iceland *India *Ireland *Israel *Italy *Jamaica *Japan *Latvia *Luxembourg *Lithuania *Malaysia *Malta *Mexico *Netherlands *New Zealand *Norway *Portugal *Poland *Singapore *Slovakia *Slovenia *South Africa *South Korea *Spain *Sweden *Switzerland *Taiwan *Thailand *Turkey *United Kingdom *Uruguay *Venezuela

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,
Roland
PayPal Community Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

I wonder if there is a connection between the ethnic make up of these countries. According to the Far Eastern Economic Review (with thanks to Madame Chiang for the link), the more Chinese there are in a country, the more prosperous it is.

Burma: 3% Chinese, $157 per capita GDP
Cambodia: 1.2% Chinese, $341 per capita GDP
Laos: 1% Chinese, $396 per capita GDP
Vietnam: 3% Chinese, $518 per capita GDP
Philippines: 2% Chinese, $1,021 per capita GDP
Indonesia: 3.1% Chinese, $1,100 per capita GDP
Thailand: 12% Chinese, $2,845 per capita GDP
Malaysia: 25% Chinese, $5,003 per capita GDP
Singapore: 76.8% Chinese, $24,620 per capita GDP
China: 99.98% (?) Chinese $????? per capita GDP

So if Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are already on PayPal's list, logically Indonesia is next.

Whoopee. Jakartass is going to be rich!

  ¶ 5:00 PM