No Need for Blogger Greed

Ramit Sethi, a recent Stanford grad, publishes a personal finance blog called I Will Teach You To Be Rich. One of his recent postings, entitled "On greed and speed," delved into a discussion about bloggers who place Google AdSense ads on their blogs in order to make money when people click through. Supposedly, it's an innovative, seemingly win-win solution for everyone.

Like Ramit on his blog site, I too have decided not to include AdSense or other ad solutions on the ITscout Blog, and for pretty much the same set of reasons. First, I don't want to ruin the visitor experience. Second, I don't want to focus on trying to make money by optimizing ads rather than just trying to create valuable content. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, I tend to believe most bloggers who are running ads are making very, very little actual money.

My approach to blogging is pretty much the same one I used while developing the ITscout web site, still one of, if not the industry's best master list of IT products and vendors. With ITscout, my primary goal was to develop a framework for modeling technology portfolios. That led to a visually-oriented three-layer, four-model representation with IT Infastructure at the bottom, Applications layered above which could either be purchased or developed, and finally, at the top, a layer corresponding to Business Intelligence. With the ITscout Blog, my emphasis has primarily revolved around addressing two key questions:

1. What is IT Architecture?
2. Why is IT Architecture important?

In both cases, ITscout and the ITscout Blog, I started out thinking less about money and more about value. I agree totally with Ramit who says, if you are (1) passionate about what you do and (2) are really good at it, then eventually the money will come.

I've concluded this posting with the following edited excerpt from Ramit's On greed and speed:

It's really hard to make something useful and lasting. If you've got a community around whatever you're doing, or people who comment on your blog, or emails from people who have written to you thanking you or asking you questions, or whatever you consider value, that's a huge step in the right direction. It takes time and patience and foresight to build value, and you'll be handsomely rewarded beyond small chump change.

Build something great. Do this first. Be patient and slowly get people to come to your site/store/business/talk/whatever. Don't start trying to sell something immediately. If people don't come, figure out why. Adapt and listen.

It's not about the money -- although you'll get plenty of it when you create something lasting.