My response to this? “Well duh” and maybe even a “We needed reports to show this?”

Bloggers are people, and the average person does not know too much about a blogger so the trust level is low by default.  Now, a blogger can build trust among their readership but this is few and far between.  The opinions of a blogger are just that, an opinion.  And to many it is the opinion of a stranger.  Also blogs are still considered by most to be a “new” form of media so a blog will not garner the same level of trust as say a well known magazine or newspaper.

I wonder how these reports translate to the blogs of popular newspapers.  Does the blogger from the New York Times have more default trust than say someone like me?  I wonder what the pshycological implications are with regards to having your blog hosted on the newyorktimes.com.  I wonder if they carry more weight with the average consumer than just a stand alone blog.

If you are a blogger looking to build your credibility, take a look at this Speed Post article over at Problogger entitled, How do I Build Credibility and Presence Online.

How Much Traffic Should a Blog Have Before Running Advertising

9 Essential Questions to Ask Yourself Before Posting to Your Blog

Scoble’s correct when he says that the corporate blogger has taken over Techmeme.  Everyday it seems like the same publishers are getting their content on Techmeme throughout the day.  Sure, a smaller publisher might get lucky and lad on the front page, but its rare.  But what does it mean to say a blog is "corporate"?  Is TechCrunch corporate?  I think what Robert Scoble is refering to is the technology blogging elite.  Those people that get first rate access to new sites and new information.

Dave Winer mentioned something similar in his article, Proof That the End is Near, where he talks about the "tech industry superdelegates" and how he is unfollowing them on Twitter in hope to find the smaller voices as well.  It seems that some of the more popular people are looking for the smaller, most likely more original voices in the blogging industry.  No longer are they interested in what someone has to say about what TechCrunch, GigaOM, or even Mashable have to say anymore.  Well they might be interested, but they might move past the headline anymore.

So can FriendFeed help the smaller blogger?  If more people move to the "everybody" tab more frequently then there is that possibility.  If Techmeme and other such sites can utilize the comment system in FriendFeed to help determine the more popular stories, links, and such then it could help the lesser known bloggers become more known.  At least for a while anyway.  Once the more elite bloggers take over the space, it might become a useless practice.

One could utilize something like Yahoo Pipes to filter out the more elite bloggers when they start to move on the FriendFeed space.  But will the extra work be worth it?  Well that is something only time will tell.  I think that FriendFeed can help the smaller blogger become more popular if people are looking for new original voices (like me!).  But someone has to be looking for those people and link to them.  Forget the Pentiums, it’s all about the links.

Micro-blogging is for Nerds

In response, I think that she understands the point, but doesn’t understand the conversation aspect of it.  When you record those little thoughts that one can’t always pan out into a full fledge 500-ish word blog post, someone might become inspired and make that post for you.  That person might have a perspective that you don’t have.  I know that there are a lot of wasted ideas out there, heck there are several a day that don’t make it to here from my end.

Either way, it’s interesting food for thought.  Check out the post, leave a comment your two.

Be sure to check out Thrifty Domestica and add it to your favorite RSS reader.

“Find a niche that you are passionate about”

I am passionate about a great many things and also have a day job so as a result, I can not really effectively run multiple blogs to handle all the stuff I’m passionate about. I have a small passion for politics, but it is not big enough to have its own blog. I have absolutely love music (both listening to and creating) and probably have enough content to start my own blog on that. I love watching movies, reading books (both novels and comics), I am heavily into technology and even co-host a radio show on that topic.

And I am not the only one. There are people out there who’s interests vary more than mine. We have opinions on a lot of things and our friends can not always be there for that occasional rant, constant discussion, or simple correction on facts. So people like me, blog and we use our blog to discuss these many interests. However, how relevant and interesting can personal blogs be? Do these blogs still hold relevance in their various topic fields. Do people care about the thoughts and opinions of others?

I would certainly hope so. The free exchange of ideas, opinions, and rants is one of the things that makes the internet so great. I am able to read the opinions of others, comment on those opinions, or even write my own rebuttal. The exchange of ideas is how problems get identified, discussed and eventually (as well as hopefully) solved. I believe that the personal blog as just as much importance in the blogsphere as those niche blogs. While niche blogs can help you understand something and maybe even teach you something, personal blogs can do that and more.

I think that we are beginning to see less and less personal blogs on their own domains (not on LiveJournal or Blogger) and I think a lot of that is because all of the “how to make money through blogging” websites discourage the idea of multiple topics. Sure, multiple topics does make it a little harder to target advertisers for a personal blog, but through decent understanding of Adsense and other contextual advertising engines you can get great contextual ads for your individual articles without too much work. Those “pro blogging” websites use the idea of a niche blog so that you can focus the advertising side of things. Not a bad idea, but it really discourages the concept of a personal blog.

Granted, the proof is not in the pudding on this website. I have honestly not made that much money through this website, granted I have not come out with nothing it just has not been hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, income on this website has always been secondary to having a place to talk about ideas, rant, or even discuss world events.

I would be interested in knowing how Darren Rowse (of ProBlogger.net) feels about this issue, maybe I should email him and ask. How do you, the reader, feel about personal blogs? Do you feel that they are relevant in to today’s internet or merely an exercise in ego?