The New York Magazine has posted a pretty long article titled Blogs to Riches – The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom.

The title is pretty descriptive of what the article sets out to do.

I found the section on Peter Rojas of Engadget mildly interesting as a story of a blogger who has ridden the wave pretty well and who says that he ‘doesn’t need to work anymore’ as a result. Of course he is – working 80 hours weeks illustrating one of my mantras – ‘ProBlogging is a lot of hard work’.

They take a look at different models/approaches to blogging for an income:

• The Accidental Tourist – ‘A lone writer who starts a blog as a mere hobby but then wakes up one day to realize his audience is now as big as a small city newspaper.’ (example – Boing Boing)
• The Record Label Approach – ‘Crank out dozens and dozens of sites and hope that one or two will become hits.’ (example – WIN)
• Boutique Approach – ‘a publisher who crafts individual blogs the way Condé Nast crafts magazines—each one carefully aimed at some ineffable, deluxe readership.’ (example – Gawker)

The article is rounded out with a look at the concept of the ‘A-list’ and the way blogs quickly come and go from it….. yadayadayada…

I got bored with the article by this point :-)

Overall it’s an article that I’m sure will get some people talking and a lot of incoming links – but I didn’t find much in it that we’ve not already talked to death already.

found via Steve Rubel

So what is a Blog anyway?

It’s a good question to ask at the beginning of a Blogging for Beginners Series as it is a question I am asked every week.

There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.

Here are a few definitions from other much wiser people on the ‘what is a blog?’ question to get us started (and once you’ve seen what they have to say on the topic I’ll share my own thoughts):

‘A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’ Source

‘A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.’ Source

‘From “Web log.” A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”‘ Source

‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’ Source

‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’ Source

‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.’ Source.

Read more of this post – where I personally answer the question of ‘what is a blog?’