Does Making Money With Your Blog Make It Not a Blog Anymore?

August 27, 2008

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At Gnomedex, Sarah Lacy started what turned into a fairly heated debate about “angst in the blogosphere”. I may have more to say about that premise later on, but one thing that was said by one of the members of the audience was essentially that if you’re making money with your blog, it isn’t a blog.

This went right to the heart of a major debate in the blogosphere, actually. Blogging started out as a simple medium of personal publishing. The idea was to share and be part of a community. Over time (and before too long), people began to find ways to make money with their blogs. The end game? Techcrunch, for example. But, it was said at Gnomedex that Techcrunch isn’t even a blog anymore. It is a media organization.

Well, I won’t beat around the bush on this one: whoever said that is an idiot.

A blog is a structure - that is all. It is a method of publishing, a way of organizing content and building a community around that content by way of comments. That is all a blog is.

These people who try to cling to this view that blogging should be altruistic and not revenue driven remind me of people who use Linux and bitch about Microsoft and Apple because of their commercial nature. But, you have a computer and you can choose to run any OS you want on it. Same with a blog system. It is a platform and you can choose to do what you want with it.

Yes, blogging is about the community and the conversation. But, I see nothing wrong with seeking monetary reward for your work. Blogging is tough work and very time consuming. At least it can be. If you choose to post only when you feel like it, that’s up to you. If you want to turn your blog into a full-blown online media source like Techcrunch, that is your choice and it should not be shunned by anybody.

All bloggers have the right to write whatever they want and do what they want with their own blog. And readers have the right to read and comment on any blog they want.

Techcrunch is a blog. I don’t care if it is super huge and is monetized. It is a blog.