IT Conversations hosts the complete audio archive of the Bloggercon III held November 2004. My sixth stop was the Making Money Session, hosted by Doc Searls.

quick notes:

  • making money with blogs vs. making money because of blogs
  • with blogs (words / content as product): ads; selling something; donations; stuff writer – some jobs seem to appear; (‘nickle and dime mindset’)
  • because of: networking mechanism; solicit your ideas; blogs as relationship tools (with potential partners, customers); as a laboratory; as a reference for what you have been thinking or doing;
  • questions framing the topic: do you write for readers? do you deliver content? do you have an audience? is your blog a brand? what do you want to get out from blogging (passionate thinking / a job)?
  • tons of use cases for blogs with different implications (journalistic, marketing, entertaining, educational,…) – there is no monolitic approch, but blogs can be leveraged for many things.
  • business blogs – not the same old marketing hogwash please, but real people behind the facade (Scoble effect).
  • no thrill possibilities for money: provide infrastructure
  • brand: borrowed from the cattle industry
  • social and cultural capital: if you start writing for a newspaper you inherit the reputation from day one. As blogger you start from below zero and need to build this trust. This is a valuable lesson.

Previous stops were the Newbie Session, the Overload Session, the Journalism Session, the Academia Session, and the Emotional Life Session.