Blogging Perks?

Business World (issue dated 13th March 2006) has an article about how one make money through blogs and the trend of people quitting their jobs to take up full-time blogging. The article mentions that an estimated 10 – 15% of the 100,000 odd India-centric blogs use Google Adsense. However, there are no stats on how many Indian bloggers have really made money through blogging. The article also suggests some alternatives to the Google Adsense program. I was surprised to read that Fabmall is planning to dole out goodies to bloggers:

Sulekha has also tied up with Fabmall to launch a scheme where the bloggers will benefit simply from blogging. A blogger will will get 100 points for every post, 20 points for a comment on his page, and 5 points every time someone reads his page. On accumulating 2,500 points, the blogger will win a gift certificate worth Rs. 250 from Fabmall.

Although the fine print has not been mentioned, I can’t ascertain the motive behind this move. Fabmall could be paying this kind of money to people who sign up for display of Fabmall ads in their respective blogs. Further, this could be restricted to people who use Sulekha as their blogging service. Has Fabmall built up lot of stock that it wants to dispose off through this scheme?

I think it is better to turn off word verification so that the spammers have a riot in the comment box.