Look [1], Guys… [2], I have to tell you [3], aside from what I’ve already said [4] about that Times article [5]…
If someone wanted me to Blog for them for enough to support my needs, I might actually take them up on it. As I’ve said a few times about my radio career, and my computer support career, I’m lucky. I got to do two things I really like doing… and I get paid for it. A lot of folks never get so lucky, to really enjoy what they do for a living. Blogging, I like, too for a lot of different reasons…and so I’d do it anyway… and if someone wanted to pay me for it, well, fine.
(Full disclosure; Technically, I do get paid… but it’s almost enough to pay for the web hosting, annually. I guess the dividing line to be when you start making substantial amounts of cash… enough to start thinking you cn make a living at it. )
What did I expect when I got into this thing? Well, there’s the thing; I honestly didn’t KNOW what to expect, though I figured a lot of people I knew and had chatted with for years, were getting into this new medium. BY the time the website went up on Blogspot, 7 years back, I’d already been active online … since the middle 70’s… back when 1200 baud was a fast modem. Not like I’d not been around a bit. So, I figured what the hell, and went for it. I’ve never looked back.
Have I been pleased with the results? Yes, I suppose I have. As I told James Joyner, over the weekend: When I add up all the talents that need to be brought in a blogging project…
* Web mastery
* Software mastery
* (Creative?) Writing
* World awareness
* promoting
* social networking
* Critical thinking
These are all skills that can be used, once so honed, outside the blogging world. I have had employers, hire me on the basis of the blog. Not that they agree with everything I say, but the assumption is if I can keep something like that running, I must have a little on the ball.
In that light, anyone running a successful blog, has a leg up, in my view even absent any other consideration. If I make money at it, fine… but I don’t expect it. Then again, I didn’t expect this site to be online seven years after I started it. Along the way, I’ve made a few good online friends, reinforced other relationships, become a respected regular on many blogs, have earned a good reputation, and picked up a hell of a writing partner, too… the best I could have hoped for, in David. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, here at BitsBlog. Even assuming we have no further accomplishment here, we can be proud of what we’ve done. And I suppose that to make it worthwhile.