Future of Blogging

I still find it amazing that by signing up for a free Google account I can publish a blog on Blogger.com for no cost at all, and by putting adverts on it I can theoretically turn it into a way to make money online. Of course this is theoretical. I first have to come up with content compelling enough to make people want to read it. and I have to promote it in some way so that people are aware of its existence. Neither of these things are that easy. But not impossible. I started my original blog more as an intellectual exercise than anything else. Almost by chance I have achieved a small but regular traffic which nets me some cash most days. I received over a dollar yesterday. This isn't life changing but I have noticed that now I have the attention of some people they do come back to see what I have added. I also get more search engine traffic and the trend is upwards. I have no idea how far it will go but is obviously not yet anywhere near its full potential. I don't think a blog is going to be my route to riches though - and I don't think it will for many people either. I would say that the situation in the Blogosphere at the moment resembles that in the pop industry in the fifties. It was possible back then to release a single for a relatively small amount of money. From this came a few thousand stars. The Presleys and the Beatles and a few other top rankers made a fortune. Many other artists had successful careers, some more lucrative than others. But most never made it. I think there will be a few headline bloggers who will as the blogging phenomenon spreads become household names and possibly very very rich. Some people will turn blogging about their specialist subjects into full time jobs, much like most industries and hobbies currently have a professional press. It will become normal for someone interested in say horse riding or accountancy to follow a couple of blogs covering their interest. It will also be possible to have a blog on a subject as arcane as mine and for it to represent a reasonable second income. That at any rate is the background to my blogging ambitions. It will be interesting to reread this blog in 5 years time and see how prescient I was. (I have it in my calender.)