Blogs
Get off the A-list treadmill and just write
I didn’t get a chance at the time, because I was on the A-list treadmill (that’s a joke), but I wanted to take note of a post that Rex Hammock made on his blog the other day (thanks to my buddy Kent for reminding me by mentioning it). It was my favourite type of blog post - a post about blogging. Rex was responding to the spate of articles about how blogs are dead, about how blogs will never amount to anything, about how blogs are shite, and so on. And he had some very smart advice.
Among other things, Rex said that:
“If you believe the size of your audience is the measure of success, don’t blog. If you think how many people link to your site is the measure of success, don’t blog. Blog because you want to have a voice in a conversation.”
That is it in a nutshell. Full stop. As others have pointed out - including my favourite sparring partner, old-media defender Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 - blogging is not a business. It is a form of communication, which can be useful for business. But it is not a business, as Jason Kottke has discovered.
Among Rex’s other smart tips were these:
“Don’t let any Technorati.com feature - and I’m not referring to a specific feature as I can’t keep up with them - define your authority or popularity or pecking order.” And also: “If you run a business, blog - because one day, I promise, you will be glad you have a place to respond when the conversation is about you.”
Thanks, Rex. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
subscribe
grazr
TwitterCount
busted tees
Discussion
Comments for “Get off the A-list treadmill and just write”
Add New Comment
Viewing 4 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Little bit contradictory, there, Matt. What's the point of having a voice if no one hears you? If you have a need to be heard, you def have to play the game and compete for attention. Or you can just plug along and hope that one day someone influential catches wind of you and thinks you're the bees' knees. Don't hold your breath tho.
I say blog simply to vent. Just for the fun of literary exercise, sending wee messages in bottles. An audience is purely gravy.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Moreover, regarding "If you run a business, blog because one day, I promise, you will be glad you have a place to respond when the conversation is about you."
If an A-lister flames you (hardly a "conversation"), it doesn't do you any good to "respond" on a page nobody reads. Ever more so if attacked by a newspaper columnist or TV reporter. And why do you need a *blog*, rather than a *web site*, for that unhappy day? It certainly seems like some sort of comparable power is being insinuated, though it's not the best example of that shibboleth.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
That said, I suggest thinking this in terms of media. According to Wikipedia, Media (the plural of medium) is a truncation of the term media of communication. If you're not communicating with anyone, it's not media. So if you don't have an audience, it's not media. Which means if you're blogging because you want to create media, then having an audience DOES matter.
The interesting question is how big an audience do you need?
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
The way the paradox is resolved is to realize that "not being heard" is still talking about the blog evangelist sales-pitch, even if denying it.
The basic formulation I use in terms of audience size is that as a minimum I want to be able to reply to a *comparable* audience if attacked. Obviously, a billion Chinese couldn't care less. The problem is that the exponential nature ("power law") of readership means this will never happen for any but a few A-listers, just as a matter of mathematics. I could go into further estimates for activism, but let me stick to that simple point.
This is why I find the shell-game of seeming to promise audience and influence, but in fact offering nothing, then scolding the disappointment, to be such an irritating practice.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks