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Business Week Does Blogging – An Incomplete Picture?

Posted By Darren Rowse 27th of April 2005 Pro Blogging News 0 Comments

I’ve been looking over the online version of Business Week that this week focusses upon Blogging. The articles that I’ve read are well written, insightful pieces – but I can’t help feeling a little disappointed that they tend to focus largely upon businesses who blog rather than blogs that are businesses. Articles like Blogs will Change your Business, Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers and the case study of Stonyfield Farm’s Blog are all going to help build the overall profile of blogging – but I wonder if an article highlighting how bloggers are using blogs to directly make a living might have given a fuller picture.

The article on Lockhart Steele’s blog Curbed.com was probably the closest to this in the articles they’ve posted online (are there more in the hard copy edition that give a fuller picture?) – however the article wasn’t really explicit or an inspirational piece on the power of entrepreneurial blogging.

Perhaps I’m being a little hard on Business Week and asking for something that was beyond what one edition could possible deliver – but I’d like to see them take another look at blogging at some point and hopefully explore blogging AS business rather than just blogging as a support to business.

What do you think?

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. BusinessWeek really does cater to larger businesses. I’m sure once you’ve grown to the size of Google and are hinting that you’re filing for your IPO, or when Google offers to buy you out and you turn them down, *then* BW will be more than anxious to cover you.

    Maybe INC would be a better target for coverage.

    Any ideas for how to turn “blogging as a business” into “blogging as a *BIG* business?” Assume that porn and gambling are off the table.

    — Jack Krupansky

  2. Heather Green says: 04/27/2005 at 8:20 am

    We just had so much to cover, it was hard to include that aspect. We decided to start with the big topline issues that our core readers are interested in. (How established businesses adapt to blogging). But, that doesn’t mean this is all we want to write about blogging.

  3. Darren says: 04/27/2005 at 10:02 am

    thanks Heather – you’re right, its such a big topic to cover – I was a little harsh perhaps with my comments and I hope no one is offended. I’m just passionate about blogging as business and hope that more and more people will catch onto its potential and not just see it as a supportive activities for businesses.

    Great edition – looking forward to getting my hands on an actual hard copy when it comes out here in Australia.

  4. I think that the “businesses who blog” focus was natural for BW’s first cover on blogging. Perhaps “the business of blogging” will be on the cover next year.

  5. I was one of the bloggers interviewed for the story, and I consider my blog, http://www.HackingNetflix.com, a business (it makes enough money for my wife to stay home now). Despite Heather’s comment, I am not a paid consultant for Netflix or Blockbuster, but I do make money on affiliate programs from Netflix and Blockbuster (and Adsense).

    I think this is a better forum for blogging as a business than Business Week (it has a different audience), but I think the article helped blogging get some much-deserved attention.

    – Mike

  6. I think you are looking at it completely different than what the article was trying to focus on. I was able to get the hard copy last night and had my reservations about reading another MSM article on blogging, but this was the first one that actually got it right. For businesses, blogging isn’t about the technology used, but the impact it has on the way we communicate. That’s what I thought the article was about.

    (You need to make this comment box bigger)

    What you are talking about Darren is making money online. Unfortunately, I am still of the opinion that blogs are still content-based websites that have been around forever. Making money with blogs isn’t a new thing because sites like Slashdot have been around since the 90s. People have been making money from newsletters for years, which is just another content-based medium. Blog technology simply makes it easier for many of us to get started building content based websites, not make money from them.

    If you looked at the Hacking Netflix portion you can see that the emphasis wasn’t on the possible ways Mike could make money, but the impact his blog had when he communicated his displeasure with Netflix rejecting him for interviews. So really you shouldn’t be disappointed in the article, but pleased that even though it took them a couple of years to finally write something on blogs, at least they got it right.

  7. Isn’t saying blogging is a business not similar to saying that the Web is a business? Is blogging really not a tool used in a business? What is this blog but a really effective way for you to conduct your business which is the business of giving advice on promoting and earning an income off blogs, for one? Just a thought.

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