I am probably the most frustrated blogger in the world right now. This is because
I have been coerced into blogging by Google. Until now, I have never had the
urge to either read or write blogs; I can probably count the number of blogs I
have visited in my lifetime on the digits of one hand (not even including the
thumb). I honestly believed that those who read blogs must be perverse, stupid
or pathologically inquisitive (hello to my dear friends over at the CIA by the
way). So why am I writing today? Well it all started one year ago when I was
wondering how people set up blogging sites. I did this just to be able to know
how the process works. In all honesty, it was never ever my intention to
actually start blogging. Even the word sounded retarded in my head.
And so after creating my account I forgot all about it for a couple of
months. Then I became very curious about how you could actually make money on
the web, which led me to discover that you need to sign up to a program called Google AdSense. This is the way to get all the advertising revenue to flow in the
right direction, i.e. into your bank account.
Now I know I am not the brightest lamp in the
street when it comes to learning new things, but I have never denied myself the
pleasure of new experiences simply because I am stupid. I had to know more
about how streams of income work on the net. If I could one day live a happy
life by getting paid to write rubbish, then who was I to complain. So I applied
to join the program. But this is where things started to become tricky. In
order to participate in AdSense you need to have a website or blog to link it
to. I remembered this silly blog site I had created and I thought it would be a
perfect test site. I didn't want to use a website I was actually using in case
my site became plastered with ads for the sort of things I would never want to
be associated with.
A week went by and then I got an email from Google
informing me that my application to join AdSense had been rejected because I had
no content on my blog. Hmm, well I never planned to give up the day job anyway.
And so I forgot about the whole thing.
A few months later, while playing around with my YouTube account (which
somehow became a Google account), I discovered that I could monetise some of my
videos. I am no master director and this was simply a funny way to see how much
I could get from my efforts. I soon realized that I was never going to retire on the
$0.02 that I had earned after a month of trying. One year later, however,
everything changed. Looking through my account today I discovered that I had
managed to earn the princely sum of almost $10 from YouTube. OMG! The only
catch is that the sum is on my YouTube page and not in my hand. And the only
way to get it in my hand is to have an AdSense account.
Now this is where
things begin to go Kafkaesk! At first I naively thought there would be no
problem here (I mentioned I was not the sharpest tool in the box, didn't I?). Happily
I started on the process of creating a new AdSense account. And here comes the
crux of the matter. I discovered that I cannot apply for a new AdSense account
until my original application for this blog site is approved. And you need to
have an Adsense account before you can edit your application. This little Catch
22 situation has been driving me crazy all afternoon.
Apparently, there are
only two solutions to the dilemma; one is to create a totally new Google
account and start again, which means I will never see my $10; the other is to
actually write a blog which will be accepted by Google. So Dear Reader, please
like this blog, comment on it, share it or do whatever else people do with
blogs and help me get my money. It is all for a good course after all J.
