One of the things that really attracted me to blogs (and now to 9rules) is the idea that one singular person can build up a veritable army of loyal supporters. He or she can build their personal brand from absolutely nothing, ending up with tens of thousands of daily readers and advertising revenue to replace a full-time job.
When blogging was still in its infancy it was thought of as a waste of time with no business value. Over the past few years however, people are now labeling it “the new journalism” because individual bloggers have broken news stories that traditional journalists might have overlooked or where afraid to touch. While others may still be comparing blogging to journalism, I see weblogs as far surpassing journalism for many reasons, but the most simple reason is that there’s no middle-man between you and your readers.
Many consider “problogging” to be the internet’s equivalent to freelance journalism, where you’re hired to write for other people who control the medium by which your message gets out to the world, but I think that’s pigeonholing the potential of blogs. That freelance writing mentality and workflow worked back when it was expensive to own printing presses and equipment (previously the only way to get your written word out to the world) but weblogs put the power squarely into the author’s hands, for good or for bad. You don’t need a printing press or support technicians anymore because if you own a weblog then you’re in charge of the entire thing: from writing to editing to publishing. Blogs give you the power to cut out the middle man, talk straight to your readers, and build your personal brand and profile.
In the same way that building a successful company from scratch is exciting, so too is building a weblog and your personal brand into something people recognize. That entrepreneurial spirit embodies all bloggers who start from scratch and want to build their audience, because running your own blog is akin to owning your own printing house: something that wasn’t truly feasible until right now.
About Mike Rundle
I don’t know. “Blogging as a business” really doesn’t sit well with me. It feels like the exploitation and abusive transformation of something that was originally meant as a fun passtime and vocal outlet into an organized cash grab that crushes the soul of what blogging was originally intended to be. It just seems cheap and opportunistic to me.
I don’t have a problem with someone whose blog naturally grew and through some tastefully placed advertising makes money. But someone who starts out with the intent of becoming a “pro blogger” for the sake of quitting their day job seems to me like a cheap attempt at making a quick buck.
Just my 2¢.
Ara, my feelings exactly. To be honest, if somebody emailed us to join 9rules and we felt as though they were blogging just to make some some quick money vs. doing it for the passion then I don’t think they’d be very welcome in our community. 9rules is about recognizing people’s quality writing about a subject they are passionate about, not about finding writers to write for 5-10 blogs just to build up Google Pagerank.