My Blogging Reality Check » Webomatica - tech, movies, music blog

My Blogging Reality Check » Webomatica - tech, movies, music blog:

* About 75% of the tens of millions of blogs are content scrapers, AdSense farms, or just plain crap.

this is one of those things I've been meaning to kvetch about a bit...

According to the Technorati page today....

Currently tracking 93.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

So, there are 93.8 million blogs. my blog has a technorati authority of 102, and a rank of 51,458.

Okay, what's wrong with this picture?

my blog, which has 500ish feed subscribers and a few hundred page views a day, is better than 93 million blogs out there? it's on of the top 50,000 blogs out of 100 MILLION?

it's worse than that. A couple of months ago, because I was testing some things, I created a typepad blog, made two postings to it (of the "hello world" variety), and then never touched it again. Within a few days, technorati ranked it about the millionth rank. For a block with two postings, no subscribers, no links in or out...

In other words -- the blogosphere is a much smaller place than we want to admit it is; it's to our advantage to blast huge numbers to a non-critical press, which sucks them in and throws them back out to the general public. For all the blogosphere throws these numbers around, an empty blog with no subscribers, no feed, and no links outranks 92 million of the other blogs on the net...

In other words, these numbers are all bogus. And I think most of us know that, really, but we nod and wink and use the huge numbers the splogs and the abandoned blogs and the spammers give us, while bemoaning how the splogs and spammers are screwing things up.

The real number of blogs seems to be much smaller, if an empty, orphaned blog sits around the 1mm range. I keep hoping that the Technorati crew will talk about the numbers and actually talk about this issue, but frankly, it's not in their best interest, either.

But in reality? this isn't such a big deal, either. It's just one of those "lack of honesty/transparency" things. if nothing else, it mostly proves that blogging hasn't really re-invented the writing industry, it's just moved it online.

I hope people quantify their blog’s purpose before they start, and answer the question “why do I blog?”. What are your goals? They really make a big difference in your ultimate satisfaction.

* Right now, if I were blogging to quit my day job, I’d be disappointed.
* Right now, if I were blogging to be famous, I’d be disappointed.
* Right now, if I were blogging to influence the tech world and be an “A-lister”… again, I’d be disappointed.

I’m not disappointed right now because none of these are reasons why I started blogging, or continue to blog.

Definitely. it's something I've been grappling with the last couple of weeks myself (the "what's next" posting ocming soon... really).

1. I don’t see any point where I could quit the day job - not unless I started several blogs and wrote for several more, but I’d probably be a burnt-out husk of a blogger. The truth is, for all the hype bloggers get we’re seriously underpaid, and unless you want to be like Mike Arrington who looks tired all the time or have the professional writing chops like Om Malik I don’t know if it’s worth it.
2. A person with connections and a much more exciting lifestyle can start an instantly popular blog based on past reputation alone. People are much more apt to read a famous person’s blog than one written by someone who has to prove their worth through writing alone.

Welcome to the wonderful world of freelance writing. It's just that you're writing to advertising, not to an editor who sends you a small check -- late. if you check with most writers, they're in the same situation. Try talking to a book author who spent ten years stuck in the mid-list making $5000 a book as an advance (and not earning out), only to see William Shatner walk in and "write" (actually, have a book ghostwritten) and published and sent right through to the best seller list. Unless you're the guy who ghost-wrote it, you're probably pretty honked.

but heck, names sell. Names are -- branding -- and as we're finding out with blogs, brands and branding, marketing, and publishing networks and distribution stilll matter, more, really, than quality of writing, although really putrid writing won't save a celebrity book (and not all celebrities are people we want to read; anyone out there remember Vanna Speaks? No, didn't think so)

fact is, writing is work. It can be hard work -- rewarding, but it's work. And unless you hit the higher echelon's of the field, it doesn't pay well. Blogging doesn't change that; it just shifts the venue and allows you to self-publish more successfully than back in the Good Old Days, cutting out the number of mouths that have to be fed to make the writing economically viable. But it doesn't necessarily create MORE money in the revenue stream...

3. I’m not an expert in anything. I see much better blogs out there covering the same subjects I do. Therefore I try to make up for it with variety of content. This might be a stupid strategy.

Neither are the Engadget guys, and I'm not dissing them here. But -- they're not experts. they're a group of writers with good marketing and distribution and an entertaining writing style, and it works. Familiarity is good. expertise can get very dry ("too much sharing!").

5. It’s a chore dealing with comments that call me a moron or the spam ones that could choke a horse - 27,000 last I checked.
6. Blogging is definitely time consuming and a long term project. I don’t even want to add up the hours I’ve spent (wasted?).

Ding! ding! ding! Just because it's blogging doesn't mean it's not work. Welcome to the real world! (grin)

This is why there are so many EX and Wannabe writers: because once the intiial enthusiasm wears off, it becomes work again, and it's the ones who can find the motivation to keep at it that generally succeed, not necessarily the best writers. The most important job skill for a writer is not necessarily grammar, but stubborn.

this is, in some ways, why I stopped writing for the last few years. And now that I've decided to go back to it, am taking a long, close look at how the online world is going to change my strategy.

Frankly, less than I first expected...

which frankly didn't surprise me.

Comments

[Webomatica]

Good thoughts. The technorati numbers could definitely use some more looking into. The definition of a blog seems to be any RSS feed which bumps up the total number of "blogs" even higher.

I'm completely unfamiliar with the economics of the print writing world, so it's good to get some insight into what goes on there.