Kottke Quits

By Lee Odden Blog Marketing, Blogging, Blogging News, Online Marketing, Rant

Let’s start the rant engine folks….

CNET reports that uber blogger, Jason Kottke has pulled the plug on blogging for a living. All I can wonder is, why it took this long? What kind of business model is micropayments? The guy needs to stop drinking his own Kool Aid and treat that blog like a business, not an experiment.

It’s a bit disheartening, really. So much potential and opportunity not realized.

Kottke.org is one of the most popular, most visited blogs on the planet – #23 on Technorati’s list of popular blogs. Throw some damn AdSense on there Jason!

There are over 13,000 pages on that domain and over 450,000 inbound links. I hear some SEOs out there salivating. What could you do with a site like that?

Someone please point Mr. Kottke over to Performancing.com or to ProBlogger.net for some profitable blogging education. Some of these guys are pulling in six figures through blogging and in the scheme of things, just getting started. According to CNET, kottke.org only pulled in $39,900 in donations and I was one of them. Hey, it was a good link investment.

Did Kottke accomplish something with his blog? Yes, but it had nothing to do with business or pro blogging. Good luck to you Jason and I hope you can get back to web design or whatever pays the bills.

For other “A” list bloggers, that are not monetizing their efforts properly, it might be “silence of the lambs” time.

[/ end rant]

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http://workingpathways.com/workbetter Garrick Van Buren

‘Quits’ seems a little overly dramatic. He simply decided not to ask for donations again, he’s not stopping the blog.

If by ‘treat that blog like a business’ you mean ‘use the blog to market yourself, your ideas, and your business’ then I agree wholeheartedly. Blogs are business cards, not businesses.
http://www.toprankmarketing.com Lee Odden

Me: “Quits”
CNET: “Throws in the Towel”

it’s all semantics right?

It’s my understanding he was trying to live off the revenue from the blog by taking donations. That model is inherently flawed and had little chance of succeeding. On the other hand, running contextual ads on all that great content being produced would create a much greater opportunity for sustainability if not profitability.

A blog can be a business card. It can also be business. Just look at http://www.problogger.net
Pingback: » Blogs are Business Cards, Not Businesses » The Work Better Weblog » Working Pathways, Inc
http://criticalassumption.blogspot.com Arnie McKinnis

making a living (whatever that means to me) by blogging or anything else has to do more with ME than with the market in general. When you talk about the hordes of bloggers making 6-figures (and I’m going to assume you mean left of decimal & annually) is top of the pyramid. Pop Quiz: How many starting quarterbacks are there in the NFL? Or How many CEO
http://www.toprankmarketing.com Lee Odden

Arnie,

I don’t recall anything about “hordes of bloggers making 6-figures”, although the number of individuals making that will increase substantially in the next year or so.

The thing about Jason Kottke, is that he made it – he is at the top. He just failed to select a revenue model that had any chance of making a significant income. Even today, he still could.