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.