In Blogs We Trust: Making Money from a Macro-Blog in the Age of Social Media

Google just gave me an other hundred bucks for all the ads on my blog (hosted by Google but written by me).

I have to admit I prefer microblogging on Twitter. That's proven by 14,000 tweets. It is a far more efficient medium to share ideas and reference material already written by others. However, blog posts have staying power. Tweets are short term. As I no longer blog frequently, my page rank on Google has taken a hit and yet  people still manage to read my old blog posts thanks to other search engines and links on Wikipedia and other sites. And then they click on the ads.

Often, the best way to change someone's opinion on something is to let them speak. As they run out of arguments, they start to self doubt. That's when they are vulnerable to new ideas. Macro-blogging does that. Whereas someone might have enough knowledge and strong opinions on a subject to write 140 characters or to forward a text picture on Facebook, they quickly run out when faced with the unlimited space of a blog post.

If you have real or social media friends that have strong opinions that you disagree with, encourage them to blog. Tell them about the bored government workers that read blogs on their lunch hours because Facebook is banned from the office. Tell them about the articles you wrote 5 years ago that are still read. More importantly, tell them that your drinks this weekend were financed thanks to stuff you wrote in bed.

In other news, my favourite podcast, The Guardian's Media Talk, is coming to an end. Here is the last episode (MP3) of Media Talk. The folks over at Twit.tv seem to still be able to monitze the spoken word. Anybody know of a good alternative to Media Talk? I'd settle for a blog.