kottke / armstrong keynote

not paying attention.

boundaries between site and personal life. 'less about me and more what i am interested in." He thinks that he can't drive traffic because he can't generate cult of personality.

unprepared rambling about their blogs. left early.

notes from micki:

Kottke: blogging for 8 years. One year fund drive ended 2 weeks ago. Subscription model, not advertising.

Heather Armstrong, dooce.com. Advertising on site – she and husband both stay home.

Subscription vs. advertising model: Kottke didn’t do ad model because he wanted to be experimental and for the support to come from readers directly. “I also don’t like advertising very much.” Doesn’t want to change writing to please advertisers. Over the course of the year, began thinking about subscribers as shareholders. Website became more like a job, felt obligated to readers. Needed more consistency.

Heather – when she first started google ads, her fans complained. It was a slow process toward bigger ads. Wanted complete control over her profits. Didn’t want her money to become the business of her readers. K says this is what happened. HA says that it seems like K is writing less personal stuff now. No more JK in website. JK says he gradually began to write less personal stuff. He thinks that personal sites are able to develop a cult of personality and to drive traffic. Your site has become more personal in a way. HA says it is very personal but she has very clear boundaries. Introducing advertising has not impacted content. Has given her more time to be more personal. Boundaries of work and personal life. Some things are sacred and not to be written about.

JK won’t do subscription drive again. Might explore putting ads on the site. Subscription model not failure but didn’t work for JK.

Posting every day has impact on traffic.