Jon Udell at Infoworld is decrying the rise of for-profit blogging, in which market share defines success, and profit comes by delivering eyes. Once bloggers have to deliver the readers, they’ll sink to the lowest common denominator, churning out garbage just to get page views.

I think Udell’s concern is a little unfounded. Blogs are becoming like any other information good that people expect for free or with extensive subsidies - TV, newspapers, magazines, driving directions. Because nobody wants to pay for it, but all want to see it, they go to advertisers for support. What’s going to happen, though, is that marketers are soon going to realize it’s not enough to just get a lot of views, you want to target them. That’s where the relationship between the customer (reader) and blogger becomes important. The blogger needs to know what his customers want, and who they are, so he can sell their eyes to advertisers. As blogging matures, segmentation and the long-tail will become more important, and the race to the bottom will become a race towards specialization.

When I saw Jon speak a few weeks (months?) ago at the STIET seminar, he discussed a different incentive for blogging, a sort of personal advertising. Bloggers are managing their online presence, giving away a sense of who they are, in order to bring in business, make themselves more valuable to their current employers, or meet new friends. The incentive to create quality content isn’t to monetize it, it’s to improve their personal brands.

That being said, Bloggers are just like any other content creator dealing with information-induced change, they need to understand their customers or audience, talk to them, and learn how to connect with them. Dworin Consulting can help organizations understand their stakeholders and build relationships with them, whether its to create a more valuable pitch for advertisers, organically grow the customer base, or just to tailor products and services to better meet customer needs. On that note, I agree with what Jon said in his talk - blogs are a great way to advertise yourself and your services.

Categories: Information Economics, Social Software