Junk for Code

Jason Kotte: blogging full-time

Veteran blogger Jason Kottke has decided to stop being a web designer to take on his blog Kottke.org as a full-time enterprise. He intends to fund the venture by asking readers to donate $30 to "help enable [him] to edit/write fulltime.

Jason runs an interesting site and he has the critical mass. Kotte.org attracts about 25,000 visitors per day, are starting to be able to be able to make a living from their blogging.

Good luck to him. This 'going pro' is a push in the right direction, even if it uncertain that it is viable in New York city. His list of supporters is growing.

Here is Jason's account of the big move:

"And yet, I almost quit last spring. The site was getting out of hand and wasn't fun anymore. It was taking me away from my professional responsibilities, my social life, and my relationship with my girlfriend. There was no room in my life for it anymore. As you can imagine, thinking of quitting what had been the best thing in my life bummed me right the hell out.

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I had a bit of an epiphany. The real problem was the tension between my web design career and my self-publishing efforts; that friction was unbalancing everything else. One of them had to go, and so I decided to switch careers and pursue the editing/writing of this site as a full-time job."

Like others I can understand that conflict.It also pulls me in two. The conflict has resulted in the quality of this site dropping over the last six months as my work has shifted from part-time to full-time.

Yet online personal publishing, which is different from journalism and is not supported by advertising, should be taken very seriously indeed. This is because in the new education marketplace the academic job of being paid to read, write, to engage intellectually, and to teach students to think critically in a democracy is being undermined through casual labour who just teach.

What do we call this new kind of online activity that contributes to the public culture? A blog artist? Jason does talk about the arts being supported by patrons. Or A freelance blogger? A dot.com entrepreneur? Whatever it is, it is very different to this kind of corporate activity.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at February 23, 2005 09:38 AM | TrackBack