Blogging for Business versus Blogging for Pleasure
January 9th, 2008 • Comments »
Fundamentally, there are two different types of blogs: those that are blogging for business and those that are blogging for pleasure. Fortunately, differentiating between the two is relatively easy. If you receive, or plan to receive, financial compensation as a direct result of your blog, you are officially in business. Conversely, if you neither receive, nor plan to receive, financial compensation as the direct result of your blog, you are officially blogging for pleasure.
What am I talking about? Simple. I am emphasizing the clear distinction between commercialized blogs and commercial-free blogs. For me, commercial-free blogs are where it’s at. I love reading the ideas and opinions of bloggers who are doing it because they love it. Sacrificing time and money to freely share your content requires a passion and sincerity that “for-profit” bloggers just can’t match. Investing in something without expectation or intention of compensation demonstrates a genuine integrity that just can’t be bought.
Of course, those blogging for dollars will say anything to persuade readers that their motives are legitimate, claiming such things as, “I’m advertising because I really need the money,” or “Making money motivates me to produce better content.” Perhaps. While it’s true that we all need money, or that you are unable to write better content without financial return, if your blog is turning a profit, it is a commercial entity — it simply doesn’t matter how it’s justified, explained or rationalized.
Let’s look at it from a different perspective. There are many different types of communicative media: books, television, radio, the Internet, and even conversation are currently available methods of sharing ideas and content. Within each of these media outlets, there is commercialized content and content that is commercial-free. A great example is television. If you want to watch television, you can watch the cheesy, mainstream networks and receive a near-lethal does of advertisements. On the other hand, you can watch public programming or subscribe to premium content channels and avoid the lunacy. The same is true for radio, satellite radio, books, and even conversation: some employ advertisements and others do not. Blogs are no different.
When people surf the Internet, scanning news, reading blogs, and shopping for products, they are inundated with advertisements — banner ads, popup ads, mouseovers, inline advertisements, text-link ads, pay-per-posts, advertorials, ad nauseam. Yet, up until not too long ago, the blogosphere was somewhat of safe-haven from commercials, advertisements, and product pitches. Sadly, this is no longer the case. As with just about everything else in our modernized, capitalistic world, the desire for money has all but ruined the noncommercial community once enjoyed in the blogosphere. These days, “pro-blogging” is all the rage, as everyone on the Internet scrambles to scrape up as much “easy money” as they click their mouse on.
Fortunately, there are still plenty of bloggers and webmasters who create content simply because they love to do it. Even though it would be dead-simple for any of these noncommercial netizens to monetize their site, they do not. Rather, in truly inspiring fashion, such devotees approach the craft as a fine art form, whereby knowledge, experience, and skills are increased, and the sheer joy of creating and growing a finely tuned site is reward in and of itself. Rather than jump on the “big-bucks” train or the “make-money-online” bandwagon, pleasure bloggers continue to show their sincerity and integrity by freely giving their time, effort, and money to further their personal passion.