The Authentic Eccentric

As I was pondering my response to the recent posts on the demise of the blogosphere, I ran across two new to me blogs and new services that have convinced me that the pundits are entirely wrong.

One of the largest challenges to bloggers who want to make a living from their blogs is monetization options. Advertising is a viable option when you have enough traffic to attract advertisers - as Clay Shirky’s power-law distribution shows, the field is slanted heavily towards first mover’s advantage, leaving smaller, newer blogs disadvantaged.

Both Edgeio and Ether offer possible solutions for smaller, niche market blogs by increasing income options without extracting sizable fees. Coincidently, they also illustrate Robert Middleton’s axiom - if you can find a solution to a problem, you’ll never want for customers.

So - why these two blogs? What possible insight do a mommy and academic blog offer us about the future of blogging? On one level, they illustrate how subject matter expertise can be leveraged into income. For example, Moreena could offer coaching for other parents of chronically ill children, advice on the transplant process or how to manage medical insurance by employing ether to manage her payment and scheduling needs without hiring additional technology providers.

Badger could offer tutoring, coaching or art auctions. Items for Annika’s insurance policy could be tagged as listings on edgeio or google base and expand her audience. Either path offers options non-technical blog authors lacked easy access to, previously.

On another level, it also provides a business methodology, niche industry and platform for them to be able to continue to provide the love and care their children need without having to return to the traditional job market.

Arguably, blogs remain one of the least expensive options for launching an online business. They allow authors to build up an online audience without the technical skills traditional html websites require, and their innate search engine friendliness and variety of aggregator points allows them to build organic traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN. Sure, not everyone is going to have a $25 million dollar payday, but you know what? Most people would be satisfied with enough income to pay their bills each month and have enough left over for Starbucks. That makes blogs still highly relevant in my world.

Update: Matt Marshall at SiliconBeat compares ether to keen and provides a quote from Mike Masnickreminding us that keen quickly became an alternative for “sex and psychics”.

While I agree that the two business models are very similar, I would also argue that 2006 isn’t 1999 precisely because of blogs. I’m pressed for time today so I can’t elaborate as much as I’d like right this minute, but think about it - blogs, unlike websites, are impactful because the best ones are authentic and personal in nature. While I’m not discounting the percentage of humans who are likely to abuse the system (and I assume it follows the law of stealing, 10/10/80) I would also argue that the relationships forged today via blogs are very different than the ones formed from professionals attempting to use Keen to develop revenue streams in 1999.

I promise, I will be back later with a longer post about why and how this is absolutely disruptive technology.