In the old days, reading a blog meant following the life of some random guy (or girl) who made ends meet through other means. Now, it’s likely to consist of contributing to a major company’s pockets (or at least an individual’s main paycheck), and this has led to the iffy idea that amateur bloggers might be getting elbowed out of the way.
Amateur bloggers must have trouble keeping up with professionals in one sense, of course; after spending nine or more hours per day at a “real” job, they can’t hope to dedicate as much time to writing. But this doesn’t guarantee that what they write is less interesting than everything else out there. Some blogs get updated less than once a day, or even once a week, yet have still found their way onto “Favorites” lists.
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If you want to think about a more traditional form of writing, consider the authors who produce new books once every decade, as opposed to churning them out annually. Reviewers don’t ding these individuals for being slower; in fact, their books are sometimes more warmly welcomed because of the wait.
As for the idea that a newcomer to blogging can’t attract readers when pros are already covering a topic, Timothy Lee notes something almost everyone knows, pointing out, “[B]logging is not a good way to get rich.” He then continues, “People almost always start blogging as amateurs, and they blog first and foremost because they enjoy doing so . . . . [T]here are much quicker and easier ways to earn some extra cash.” From this perspective, there isn’t much competition at all.
And then there’s the matter of barriers to entry, which, in the case of blogging, are nonexistent. Free software provides blogs to every expert or bozo with Internet access and the brains to use it. There aren’t any grumpy editors or bandwidth shortages limiting bloggers; so long as they don’t violate anything’s terms of service, people can post their thoughts with relatively little trouble.
Professional bloggers seem to have sprung up in addition to amateurs, not in place of them. If anything, the existence of the pros should encourage amateurs, since they act as proof that bloggers can become more than “some random guy.”
As for the future, Lee predicts, “There will always be a large number of amateurs creating online content and a smaller core of professionals, with a relatively fluid line dividing the two.”
