{"id":9129,"date":"2006-02-13T12:54:52","date_gmt":"2006-02-13T19:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/02\/13\/toiling-in-obscurity.html"},"modified":"2006-02-13T12:54:52","modified_gmt":"2006-02-13T19:54:52","slug":"toiling_in_obsc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/02\/13\/toiling_in_obsc.html","title":{"rendered":"Toiling in obscurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

And proud of it<\/a>!<\/p>\n

By all appearances, the blog boom is the most democratized revolution in media ever. Starting a blog is ridiculously cheap; indeed, blogging software and hosting can be had for free online. There are also easy-to-use ad services that, for a small fee, will place advertisements from major corporations on blogs, then mail the blogger his profits. Blogging, therefore, should be the purest meritocracy there is. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a nobody from the sticks or a well-connected Harvard grad. If you launch a witty blog in a sexy niche, if you\u2019re good at scrounging for news nuggets, and if you\u2019re dedicated enough to post around the clock\u2014well, there\u2019s nothing separating you from the big successful bloggers, right? I can do that.<\/p>\n

In theory, sure. But if you talk to many of today\u2019s bloggers, they\u2019ll complain that the game seems fixed. They\u2019ve targeted one of the more lucrative niches\u2014gossip or politics or gadgets (or sex, of course)\u2014yet they cannot reach anywhere close to the size of the existing big blogs. It\u2019s as if there were an A-list of a few extremely lucky, well-trafficked blogs\u2014then hordes of people stuck on the B-list or C-list, also-rans who can\u2019t figure out why their audiences stay so comparatively puny no matter how hard they work. \u201cIt just seems like it\u2019s a big in-party,\u201d one blogger complained to me. <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Boo<\/em>, and, also, hoo<\/em>. The right to own a soapbox doesn’t entail the right to be heard. And once you get of a size, it’s like any other creative product — a mixture of creativity, sweat, and connections. The idea that it’s somehow not “fair” that other folks are far more successful, hit-count or money-earned, than me has never seriously entered my mind. It’s not a matter of some great conspiracy, it’s a matter of that’s how successes are made in the real world as well as the virtual.<\/p>\n

And, frankly, my own sense of “success” isn’t bound up on how many people read me. I get a thrill when folks come here, but I’m not doing it just for that. If I were, I’d make it my profession\/vocation, not my hobby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And proud of it! By all appearances, the blog boom is the most democratized revolution in media ever. Starting a blog is ridiculously cheap; indeed, blogging software and hosting can…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2169,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/02\/26\/i_am_the_minute.html","url_meta":{"origin":9129,"position":0},"title":"I am the Minute Man, I am the Walrus","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 26-Feb-02 1:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting article on blogging in the MIT Technology Review (if you can see past all the animated ads, that is). Bloggers are turning the hunting and gathering, sampling and...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15270,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/21\/supporting-other-bloggers-for-the-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":9129,"position":1},"title":"Supporting other bloggers for the Blogathon","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Jul-09 2:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As we hurtle toward the Blogathon on Saturday, let me highlight again two of the other bloggers I know who are participating, in hopes that you'll perhaps give them some support as well. Steve at Chirographum has gone so far as to set up his own site for his Blogathon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5611,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/11\/tick_tick_tick.html","url_meta":{"origin":9129,"position":2},"title":"Tick. Tick. Tick.","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Feb-04 8:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"I think most of us bloggers do this, sometimes ......","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12299,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/05\/blogging_from_the_blackbe.html","url_meta":{"origin":9129,"position":3},"title":"Blogging from the Blackberry","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Jun-08 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"SixApart has announced a native blogging module for RIM Blackberries. That's the good news. The bad news is, it's only for blogging to TypePad blogs. TypePad customers can now easily...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging - Technical"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging - Technical","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogging-technical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136488,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/18\/moderating-online-groups-is-difficult-and-ambiguous.html","url_meta":{"origin":9129,"position":4},"title":"Moderating online groups is difficult and ambiguous","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-May-18 4:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting look at how difficult and time-consuming it is to keep online social media platforms clean and productive. The most important aspect is the ambiguity in doing so. As part of an exercise at a conference on the subject, groups were presented with moderation situations and asked to vote\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/xkcd%2Bsomeone%2Bis%2Bwrong%2Bon%2Bthe%2Binternet%2Bduty_calls.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24281,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/06\/bloggers-arent-journalists.html","url_meta":{"origin":9129,"position":5},"title":"Bloggers aren't journalists?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Dec-11 5:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Actually, from an etymological standpoint, they are absolutely journalists. And from a legal standpoint, it's hard to understand the Oregon judge's restriction that, if you aren't part of the Officially Recognized Media, you're not really a journalist. How he squares that with the law's protection of any \"person connected with,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}