Editor’s note (May 2026): This article is part of Blog Herald’s editorial archive. Originally published in 2007, it has been reviewed and updated to ensure accuracy and relevance for today’s readers.
At an UnConference in Philadelphia back in 2007, an idea started circulating about something called “open source marketing.” The premise was simple but ahead of its time: blogging wasn’t just publishing. It was participation. Your thinking made public, your expertise made findable, your network made real.
Nearly two decades later, most of the tools have changed beyond recognition. The feed is now an algorithm. Blog comments have migrated to Discord threads and Twitter replies. The self-publishing that early bloggers championed has spawned an entire creator economy worth hundreds of billions of dollars. But the underlying logic holds up better than almost anything else written about blogging in that era.
If you’re building a content strategy today, this older framing is worth revisiting — not for nostalgia, but because it clarifies something that a lot of modern content advice obscures.
What “open source” actually meant for bloggers
The term open source originally described software development: make the code available, let anyone contribute, let collective effort improve the whole.
You weren’t just broadcasting to an audience — you were contributing to a shared body of knowledge, inviting others to build on your thinking, and making your expertise available for anyone to find and use.
This mattered because it upended the old media model. Before blogging, expertise was gatekept. You got published if a publisher chose you. You got heard if a radio station or magazine decided your voice had value. Blogging collapsed that gate. Anyone with domain knowledge and the discipline to write regularly could become a credible source.
Live blogging, in the sense of frantically transcribing events as they happen, misses the point. Real value comes from processing what you’ve seen and heard — before, after, and in between — and offering your own interpretation. That’s not just a conference tip. It’s a content philosophy.
The three arguments, reconsidered
There were three core claims. First, that blogging is live broadcasting — your feed is always on, always reflecting your thinking in real time. Second, that blogging is self-publishing — your expertise is findable and repurposable. Third, that blogging builds relationships — and the tools for doing so are cheap, even when the conversations aren’t.
Each of these has aged differently.
The live broadcasting argument has arguably become more true, not less. In 2007, “always on” was a novelty. Now it’s baseline expectation. Readers, followers, and subscribers expect a consistent signal from the creators they trust. The challenge has shifted from “can you publish regularly?” to “can you maintain quality and distinctiveness at volume?” Orbit Media’s annual blogger survey consistently shows that bloggers who publish longer, more thoroughly researched posts report stronger results — a direct endorsement of the depth-over-frequency argument Maltoni was making when most people were still racing to post as often as possible.
The self-publishing argument has been validated on a scale she couldn’t have imagined. The examples she cited — Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and Bob Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule, both originating in blog conversations — were early proof of concept. Today, newsletter writers routinely turn their archives into books. Podcasters sell courses. YouTubers build software companies. The blog-to-book pipeline she described became the blog-to-brand pipeline, then the blog-to-business pipeline. The principle is the same: consistent public thinking compounds into credibility and, eventually, commercial value.
The relationship argument is the one that has weathered the most turbulence. Social platforms fragmented the conversation. Comments moved to Facebook, then Twitter, then Substack threads. Building genuine professional relationships through blogging got harder as the signal-to-noise ratio worsened. But the underlying truth — that people recommend people they know, work with people they respect, do business with people they like — hasn’t changed. What’s changed is where the relationship-building happens. Many serious creators today treat their blog as the anchor and social platforms as distribution channels for drawing people back to that anchor.
Where this framing goes wrong for modern creators
There’s a version of the “open source” metaphor that leads people astray. Open source software works because contributions are cumulative — your code builds on everyone else’s. Content doesn’t always work that way. Writing thoughtful posts and putting them into the void isn’t automatically collaborative. The feed isn’t self-organizing. You have to actively participate: respond to others, reference other people’s work, show up in the conversations happening around your topic.
A lot of bloggers produce content that is technically public but functionally closed — no internal links, no engagement with other voices in the field, no clear invitation for dialogue. That’s broadcasting, not open source. The distinction matters.
The other thing that 2007 framing couldn’t fully account for is platform dependency. When she wrote this, the blog was the platform. Your feed, your domain, your archives — you owned them. That ownership created the conditions for the repurposing and compounding she described. Today, many creators have rebuilt their “open source marketing” on rented land: Instagram profiles, TikTok accounts, Twitter/X followings. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has long documented the risks creators face when platforms change their rules, algorithms, or business models. The open source marketing argument only holds if you own the platform you’re publishing on.
What this means for your content strategy today
The three-part framework from 2007 maps cleanly onto three questions every content creator should be asking right now.
Are you publishing consistently enough to maintain a live signal — and is that signal distinct enough to be worth following? Consistency without differentiation is just noise.
Are you building a body of work you actually own — on a domain you control, in archives you can repurpose? Or are you accumulating followers on platforms that could change their terms tomorrow?
Are you genuinely participating in a conversation, or just broadcasting into one? The relationship-building only happens when you engage as a peer, not just a publisher.
The tools for open source marketing are cheaper and more powerful than they were in 2007. The principles haven’t moved. That’s usually a sign that the principles are worth keeping.
