America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for HireMark Penn, Hillary 2008's top guy ... more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers ... blogging is an important social and cultural movement that people care passionately about, and the number of people doing it for at least some income is approaching 1% of American adults. ... a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income ... one percent of the nation, or three million people, can create new markets for a business, spark a social movement, or produce political change ... The Information Age has spawned many new professions, but blogging could well be the one with the most profound effect on our culture. ... Demographically, bloggers are extremely well educated ... It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 a year. ... Bloggers can get $75 to $200 for a good post, and some even serve as "spokesbloggers" -- paid by advertisers to blog about products. As a job with zero commuting, blogging could be one of the most environmentally friendly jobs around -- but it can also be quite profitable. ... Pros who work for companies are typically paid $45,000 to $90,000 a year for their blogging. One percent make over $200,000. ... Bloggers make money if their consumers click the ads on their sites. ... bloggers say they are overwhelmingly happy in their work, reporting high job satisfaction ... There are more questions than answers about America's Newest Profession. ... hard to think of another job category that has grown so quickly and become such a force in society without having any tests, degrees, or regulation of virtually any kind. ... a lot of interest now in Twittering and Facebooking -- but those venues don't offer the career opportunities of blogging. Not since eBay opened its doors have so many been able to sit at their computer screens and make some money, or even make a whole living. ...
This guy Dave Winer has an ugly looking blog, and he runs no ads, but he makes millions blogging. How?
To get excited about blogging is to "get" 2.0. And if you have been missing out on 2.0, it is not possible you are on the cutting edge.
(1) Value
The market rewards value. Are you meeting some kind of market need? Your blog adds to your value. It helps your marketing efforts. It is real intimate talk with your most important clients. Like A VC says, if you read his blog, and that of his five partners, it is like you sit with them in their office every day: that intimate.
(2) StartUp/Corporate
If you are a tech startup person, you breathe blogging. That rectangle on the screen is your office. And the blogosphere is a big chunk of it. Blogging becomes that fundamental, indispensable skill. It is like, can you type? Can you do that keyboard thing? If you can't, I think you are still beautiful, but how are you going to get any work done? Blogging is what typing was. Are you blogging literate? That is a fair question these days. (3) Lifelong Education
Blogging is to the brain what jogging is to your thighs. If you are an active blogger, chances are you keep up with the news in your chosen field. You think about the hot issues of the day. You are alert. You can still type as of today.
(4) Living Life To The Full Zappos says somewhere that because he tweets, he lives life more fully. Blogging makes you more alive as a person. You are more likely to squeeze that last drop out of each moment.
(5) Plenty Of Money
Write great content, regularly, jack up your traffic, and let the ads do their work.
Google Analytics tells me I am a Paul Krugman friend and a Cupcake Android expert. So I might as well deliver. I am going to visit Krugman's blog as often as I can. And I am going to write a whole bunch of blog posts about Cupcake Android. I have a reputation to keep up with. Looks like.
"We feel so smart when we are talking to ourselves!" - Hillary Clinton at the Kos Convention 2007
Is blogging a solitary act? Can it be a solitary act? Does it have to be a solitary act? As in, is it monk-ey business? Monks go solo. Well, not entirely true. Sangham Sharanam Gachhami is, to the community I go. But I am talking about the stereotypically stereotypical monk.
It can look like it. A guy/gal sitting in front of a computer in pajamas typing it away. It can look like it at first sight.
But think about it. The best bloggers are those who have something to say. And you can not have something to say if all you do is sit in front of a computer screen and type it away.
You must already know from before you started typing it away, through training, a prior job, career, life experiences, education. You must be willing to learn. You must be alive. You must be living. The online consumption of content, or electronic but not really online in the case of Kindle, is the bedrock of ongoing education for many of us. That counts. Consuming content counts.
Learning and teaching happens. They help.
But my question was more to the social aspects. Is blogging a solitary activity? Is it meant to be solitary? Does it end up solitary despite all our intentions to the contrary? Don't confuse me with the facts! Don't disturb me with people!
Photoblogging is social. Videoblogging better be social. I tried to do the camera thing myself a few years back, and I look dead in the water in those video clips, not my proudest moments. My best video clip of me to date is one where someone else is doing the camera work.
Text blogging itself is meant to be social. And for someone with an active blog, that blog gives you a better feel for that person than anything else they might have online, more so than their Twitter and Facebook accounts, more so than their website.
And many friendships get forged in the comments sections of blogs.
I was going to say Content Is King, but then figured it might come across as sexist. It is like my Facebook/Twitter intro blurb has the word BossManPerson. I could not just say boss. That would be boring. Then I was inspired by my memory of comedian Negin's use of the word bosslady to describe herself. So I opted for Bossman. That stayed for a few weeks. A few days back I changed that to BossManPerson. I hope it is both informative and interesting.
Product/content alone will not cut it. Marketing efforts are necessary. And there are times when marketing rules and product/content is secondary. But at the end of the day, it is product that is queen.
Great blogging is primarily about putting out great blog content. Do you have something to say? Can you have something to say? Can you say it well? The second question is something to do with the fact that that niche that you might be most passionate about might not be the most lucrative.
And in many cases content creation happened before blogging came along, before Twitter came along. Some of the people with the biggest Twitter followings just so happen to be celebrities, tech and otherwise. You could argue you create better tweets than Ashton Kutcher, but that dude created his content elsewhere, on that big screen, and he established connections with people there. (My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher)
Blogging and Tweeting is no substitute for your work, whatever line you might be in, and for that matter Facebooking. If you are a student, spend more time with your textbooks than with your Facebook page. Spend more time with friends in person than with them on Facebook. Social skills are necessary, for work and for pleasure.
So content creation is not just about creating great blog posts, and great tweets, and having smart aleck things to say on other people's Facebook walls. Content creation is about doing the best you can do in your workspace, it is about living the best life you can live. It is about your emotional investments in your family, relationships, friends. Because if you do all that, you will have something to say. Content does not come out of life vacuum. Live. Work. Love. Rejoice. Enjoy.
I just added these buttons to my blog. I figured they will help spread the word out a little. Although my blog has best served me for small group communication purposes. This is no mass traffic blog. It is a communication tool. Helps me get my point across. And also speaks to my blogging hobby. It is both business and pleasure, like James Bond says in a movie: "Hopefully both!"
You do want a larger audience. You do want to build a community around your blog. Post it and they will come does not cut it. You have to go where people are already assembled.
You add the buttons and it is one step easier for visitors to help you spread the word if the spirit might move them.
One glitch for me now is the two buttons work for individual posts only. Otherwise your general blog URL is what gets tweeted. Still, no complaints. So if you want to tweet/digg a particular blog post, get on the web address with that particular blog post, then press the button.
The idea is to spill your stream of consciousness thoughts, ideas, perspectives into that collective stream. Curiously that also jacks up your blog's status with the search engines. Yesterday I googled up "sites that pay you to blog" and my post on the topic showed up in the top 10 results.
It is almost as if for the past few days I have been spending more time blogging than tweeting. But then I discovered something else. When you download about four blog posts in a row into your Twitter stream, suddenly you get 10 new followers on Twitter. That is not like Oprah getting 50,000 new followers before her first tweet, but it is something. Like they say, it adds up, and it is organic growth.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sXuGr_6bc32M51w3-x_77h54bQCJYpPRiEMe1xwbaurOYPN1twPqKjLMVFFcExVuPbgEn7U-JCitlejGGDptEiZN-GJR43FX5Y8E6NHWz9RUMcKMecMRAy2A27N9F_M6D25Kss06bC5pgQviTREZTg=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tbPcxr9tZuWBDMrUPwx8a_pgoRB10bW3wPkPHPQi5xpMSli8vjaaF2rnicU1h0gdb5Ji2DVrjGeu8jajnHWBZW1a8rgwbrxPpZhjQM50Hyl6hELuYDS4G6unG9P15-aKckcgcjYRZEVgGI_96Qa5ws=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uiP-ISLM2vHoHsAu1vaY5ilsWsVUn0Zq2-ssKwA59w3BCbZd8Sa36G151_6piluCqojV3ZresWXahzat-GyLmwFG6hPlB0R_f555j2KH8dX48G7BVK8wZ9m6dOJnDh9h1FG-XhjxS_0k1JxYovn5Xe=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v-3QbTYop4ebI4wi3gMHAMz0eAhQqnKFvEJFK0J8FNLhaI4AZo-Y8iBffOckPKl1y56WqD-UlAhOeNx1_AbYYAREMkH0JVub3ho8n4cPQRW7pX0ZXVY-KMwAcIQGZVub_l6b8El-IbWL0akfu1rYV8=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vHo4YYRbFaqKNUwdkCL9fTVkCnxmJi3BZQGCbRabytjF3HlWwhY8AuZ-38LpvKt4C1gwZR1eGkvke0-jF87ptDem6BiYFbRCxY-OsZs6B9eBjA4CnqTmTqF6CKmOzUPmgSTLkIeDkMgxvPQm1aqXe7=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t4FRRkBy7-YmzUqEPXgemH4mZKLl9lKLPryPfvK25znV5-TLLC5LTL-Dm6rj_Ok0SEyd0WlcrTXhWoYs-8oMnslrv-C1HL8GDYbnHlOQeXdkEt11VuA-11p17BUjxPD7pNansG90yLVFyRXQUhkT0s=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tADbI7YmsuYQkktws2wH-kAsgIiwWVRMBTQW1i3wRrVhItLNack0LsgHJZlTR_Cz7U-TGRaYTFMQxt6-v6ceII2ZUcrmvNkulGhGJEOlmAmrce0CM9nSY2_q7vEMQ6vSwKd2cth-7lVPEQVublAnpv=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tCkeT-dmZINvij_MIPjvMWS4Yk_ewOzEfXJ9EJN8s4b07T8Tlp6Q0taPMl5AAh-Uz_xko6sEygH3OLx5K58L1fFUX3ZJUn_3OaaopCK5B0ySroIZ3ZGB1neVZlTsh9fY6JWiQDNx6p2A9qGmCM9AOP=s0-d)