Doc Searls responds to Blogging for Money Criticism

Doc Searls has been on the receiving end of some criticism recently after some of what he said at BloggerCon and a quote that appeared in a recent Newsweek article on blogging. Today he posts a good post clarifying his postition on problogging:

‘So let me make this as clear as I can. I have nothing against making money with blogs. Hell, I’d love to make money with IT Garage, and I’m watching closely what Nick and Jason and Tony and Stowe are up to, because they’re among the leaders at figuring that out. Chris Nolan, too, as a stand-alone journalist. Also Dan Gillmor. Same are Doug Kaye, Marc Canter and too many others to name here, each in their own ways.

See, I think the future of periodical publishing, and of journalism itself, will be built mostly by individual bloggers and indivdidual blogs, and by a new breed of publishers who harvest and republish (and, yes, pay for) goods from the wide open ranges where bloggers roam, and post, free. The day will come when the top print publications will be comprised of prose and pictures provided by blogs and bloggers….

Meanwhile, I still think there’s more money being made because of blogs than with them. Problem is, I have no hard evidence for that. There also are not many people, besides myself and Dave Winer, who are interested in talking about it.’

Ok – I actually think that most of us are on the same page here. Whilst there are a few examples of bloggers writing off blogging directly for money as not being viable – I think its generally accepted that there are numerous examples of individuals or groups who are making a living from their blogs. Along side this I think we’re also seeing individuals and groups emerge who are making a living indirectly from blogging whether that be through consulting, blog design, blog services/tools or as a result of the credibility that they build through their blog in their area of expertise.

I for one AM interested in talking about all methods of earning a living from blogging. I watch with interest many bloggers experiments and myself am involved not only in blogging directly for dollars (it brings me the majority of my income these days) but also am beginning to explore some consulting opportunities here in Australia and overseas which have arisen out of this and other blogs.

As I’ve argued before – ‘I think the majority of money to be made from blogging probably comes from other activities on the edge of blogging and not directly from the activity of posting articles’ – however there are many ways to skin a cat (is that just an Aussie saying?) – and there are many ways to make a dollar from blogging and I think we all need to perhaps just take a ‘chill pill’ and allow one another to experiment and do our own thing – and somewhere in the midst of it all we may find the answer for our own particular circumstances.