We’d like to let everyone know that we’re ending the JAM Teacher Exchange early. There was little to no interest in supporting the campaign, and should anyone be interested at this point we’re too close near the end of the deadline to start negotiating about / writing content for possible sponsorships.
We had high / realistic / careful hope of collecting some money for a good cause, but the only offers we got came from people who think Joomla & More is interested in becoming a free advertising platform for companies it’s got no connection with. If you’re planning to contact us with a similar proposal – or if you’re planning to offer us any sort of services – please refrain from doing so as you’re only wasting your own time and insulting us (writing content costs time, dedication and creativity) in the process.
Impact on future campaigns
We will be taking this experience in account when planning the future of Joomla & More. We are always evaluating our strategy and trying to adapt to the new reality. Part of that reality is that, if we want to realize some of the plans we had for this blog, we might have to step away from the principle of avoiding affiliate marketing. WordPress.com recently changed it’s policies, allowing discrete affiliate marketing when tied into the content of the blog. This is a route we’re strongly considering since there are things we want to do with Joomla & More that we can’t do at this time.
What it roughly comes down to, is there’ll be no next campaign.
Future transparancy
In the past, we’ve tried to be very open regarding our policies. Our extensive documentation of the JAM Teacher Exchange was part of this “transparant” approach. We believed that is was our duty to be 100% open on our resources of revenue to rule out any debates.
In the future, we’ll be changing this policy. It’ll be up to our discretion to share what our policies regarding content and advertising is. Since this is a personal blog, this is more than a fair policy. It’s a nice way of saying “We’re going to go back to doing whatever we think is the best / the most fun / the most beneficial for us. Analysis of the JAM Teacher Exchange had lead us to believe that only a very small minority is interested in the details of how our blog is run. The majority of our readers are only here for the tutorials and guides, which is fair (and nothing new, at all).
By all means, keep your opinions for yourself.
in the past, there’s always been two or three people who think that our “open” approach means they’re somehow entitled to mocking our approach on social media. We’d like to invite them to keep their opinion to themselves this time. Especially if they’re members of an organization which is infamous for claiming “transparency” but behaving the exact opposite when it comes down to it. 🙂