February 23rd, 2006
Blogging Is NOT a Business
Here’s what’s wrong with all the discussion about the future of blogging as a business — blogging is not a business!
Here’s the latest me-too analysis from The Chicago Tribune (which cites a recent Gallup poll on blog readership):
Even if blogging flops as a business and doesn’t attract more readership, many bloggers will still have loyal followings.
In the 90s, everyone thought a website was a business. It’s not. A business is a business, and e-commerce is just one way to conduct business.
So what is a blog? It’s a content management and publishing platform. All online publishers use a content management and publishing platform. The difference with blogging software is that it doesn’t come with the huge price tag.
Bloggers are publishers, like all other online publishers — and all publishers are struggling to figure out how to make money off of their content.
So don’t meditate on the future of the blogging business. Meditate on the future of the publishing business — and the future of the entire media business.
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[…] I’ve actually had many issues with the hype around the blogging phenomenon. I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, and the posts from Scott Karp and Rex Hammock both suggest to me that blogging wasn’t worth the hype (though I’m sure both of those guys would disagree with my interpretation). […]
That was what annoyed me so bad about that New York Magazine article, it assumed that all us bloggers were doing it for the money. Terry Heaton had some good comments on how that article missed the point.
Backlash WSJ Moves a Step Closer to Laying Off the Presses Netherlands Crime Map Debuts I smell fear Blog Bubble Bursting? Get a Grip Blogging Is NOT a Business links for 2006-02-23 Citizen Journalism Gets $11M Dow Jones combines print, online units Times-Picayune wins Polk award
1999. See the classified ads link in the left hand column. Again, primitive and Perl-based, but we had them way back then. Scott Karp gets it too : So what is a blog? It’s a content management and publishing platform. All online publishers use a content management and publishing platform.
[…] From The Vision Thing: “In the spirit of my balloon post idea from a few weeks ago, I will link to Scott Karps blog, not the Chicago Tribune, on the subject of whether blogs are in decline due to not having a sustainable business model in and of themselves. Here’s Scotts take: In the 90s, everyone thought a website was a business. Its not. A business is a business, and e-commerce is just one way to conduct business. The Tribune piece (linked through Scotts blog) is an embarassing piece of agitprop. Gee, old media ripping on blogs? Whod-a thunk it? And good one, using the old Al Gore invented the internet wheeze. If the Trib cant get their facts straight in this hatchet piece, what does this say about the rest of the paper? (OK, so they were being snarky and stuff. Same question.) Kudos to Scott for not taking the agitprop bait, and instead offering up a concise analysis of where the money is in blogging. (Hint: Its not in blogging.) […]” ADVERTISEMENT […]
[…] 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. […]
[…] a blog? It’s a content management and publishing platform. “ Rate this Post Trackback:http://workingpathways.com/workbetter/archive/blogs-are-business-cards-not-businesses/trackback/ Tags: Blogging for Business(t) , Advertising(t) By: Garrick Van Buren on 24 February2006 […]
[…] February 24, 2006 Coca Roacha I had the weirdest dream last night. I don’t even want to hear any type of interpretation of this horror. I was drinking a fast food drink with a straw and something kept clogging the straw. I already have paranoia about this type of thing because I’ve heard so many stories of horrible things being in the ice cubes. I finally drank some more of my drink, only to feel something tickling my tongue, and spit out a baby rat. I dumped my drink into a glass and there was a roach the size of a mouse swimming around in the water. That’s just nasty. The guy who is jumping hurdles on the picture when you open Adobe Acrobat is very annoying. Can’t they change that picture? He has on balloon pants and tiny pointed shoes. He wears a yellow shirt, a red tie, and grey pants. My screen always freezes for a few seconds so that I have to look at him until my pdf document opens. There is so much buzz around blogging these days, and there are people making money on their blogs. However, I read something today that I agree with: Blogging is NOT a business. […]
[…] Take “blog” as another example — “web log” software is simply a publishing platform — an easy-to-use content management system — but it has come to connote an iconoclastic, power-to-the-little-guy ethos. On the face of it, I don’t like the word “blog” because of its unfortunate onomatopoeia. […]
[…] Can’t we lay to rest the endlessly inane debate about whether blogging can succeed as a business? (The latest miss-the-point round is between Jason Calacanis and Alan Meckler.) […]
[…] You see the same phenomenon in blogging — blogging is not a business in the traditional sense because most people do it for the attention, not because they believe there’s any financial reward. […]
[…] You see the same phenomenon in blogging  blogging is not a business in the traditional sense because most people do it for the attention, not because they believe there’s any financial reward. […]
I think that many people do it because they have nothing else to do though some other do it to attract attention to some urgent matters.
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