Problogging: Business or Career?

In most of my talks about professional blogging, I’d refer to many types of them and explain the nature of their revenue source. However, two types of of probloggers are more prominent than others — the grassroots problogger (independent) and the career problogger (network blogger). While they may also be blogging part-time or full-time, the two differs in one major aspect.

The network blogger looks at his blogging activity as a career, the same way any 8-5 office worker sees his job in the company he works for. The best part of being a network blogger is that it eliminates the 8-5 routine and replaces it with telecommuting (or some would prefer to call freelancing/working-from-home) and still earning the regular monthly salary. However, there is danger that this source of income is regarded as just that — salary.

On the other hand, you have the grassroots problogger (the indies) which rely directly on their own blogs to generate income. The same flexi time benefits apply but in this case, there’s no fixed monthly salary to be had. The revenue at the end of the month will vary on blog performance (e.g. traffic) and volume of ad placements. This setup can be regarded as an entrepreneurial endeavor in a form of internet business.

So, you have two probloggers looking at their blogging income as either salary or revenue.

Yaro wrote a very interesting piece on “How To Leverage Blog Income To Build A Web Property Portfolio” in his blog and I can never more. However ones blogging income is derived, he advises that one use this income to invest on other ventures or web properties. I always wanted to be able to build a brick-and-mortar business from whatever revenue I generate from my internet ventures and hopefully translate the same success online to the offline world. I guess the term diversify comes to mind.

Back in 2003, when I was still working for Microsoft, I read Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and one tip he revealed there that I’ve always put to mind was “that I should not work for money but let my money work for me“. Hence then, I’ve taken that advise to heart.