6 comments

• 

  Mark Dykeman

  1 year ago

  Blog feeds are a commodity that happen to have a retail price of $0.00.
  
  It seems like Allen Stern is looking for something with the ease and convenience of an RSS feed that people would be willing to pay for. Thing is, and I mean no disrespect to you, Mathew, but as you've indicated above, the value proposition might not be there for someone to pay for blog content on a subscription basis. Your blog does serve to:
  
  a) provide you with a continual online presence
  b) draw people's attention to things that you find interesting
  c) provide some education
  d) provide you with a promotional platform, if you choose to use it that way
  
  Rex Hammock says it quite eloquently, doesn't he?
  
  Matthew, a question: do you feel like you are "locked in" to blogging? In other words, do you feel that giving up a blog would actually hurt you as a professional and, to be blunt, as a product?
  
  Another piece of data in my ongoing quest to come up with a new model to monetize content. I'm really enjoying your writing.
  reply
• 

  mathewi

  1 year ago

  No Mark, I don't feel "locked in" to a blog. There are lots of other ways I
  could promote myself, some of which might be even more effective. But I
  think blogging is one of the easiest, cheapest and most rewarding methods,
  and I really enjoy doing it. In fact, I do it as much for my own purposes
  -- as a way of thinking things through and drawing comment from others -- as
  I do for any other reason.
  reply
• 

  Mark Evans

  1 year ago

  I think what Allen is really driving at is the rise of RSS means fewer people actually visit blog sites, which hurts a blogger's ability to make money. I wrote about it a couple months ago:
  
  http://www.markevanstech.com/2007/11/26/what-if...
  reply
• 

  mathewi

  1 year ago

  Yeah, I know -- which is why I was suggesting that bloggers have to look at
  other ways to make money that are offshoots of their blogs. Think of your
  blog as advertising, not as a place for advertising. I don't think making
  money from a blog (or at least any kind of substantial amount of money) is a
  realistic proposition, really, except in maybe a handful of exceptional
  cases.
  reply
• 

  jules

  1 year ago

  I wonder if I'm understanding this right - paying for RSS feeds or going right to the website directly? I'm a bad blog reader I keep all the cool stuff in iGoogle - and there are about 2 dozen sites that, if I like what I see in the rss reader bit, I open the entire blog in a new tab, because I don't want to miss anything! I use my rss reader as a bookmark ;-)
  
  I'd rather pay for blog access to someone i'm interested in, rather than just the rss feed ;-)
  reply
• 

  Adam_Y

  1 year ago

  "it’s hard to monetize a blog if no one ever comes to the website and looks at the feeds"
  
  Read: It's hard to make money from trying to sell something that no one wants.
  
  Simple economics... make good things, get readers, make money... not the other way round
  reply