All the blogosphere is a buzz today with the news that long time blogger Jason Kottke has thrown in his day job to pursue blogging as a full time career for 1 year.
In a post to his blog, Kottke writes that he will be funding his endeavours by a one-time “fund drive” lasting 3 weeks, where readers make contributions, with the enticement of going into the draw for gifts as an incentive for readers to give.
Admittedly he writes: “I have absolutely no idea if this will work”.
The use of micropayments is a risky business strategy that has been criticised in the past and simply may not work in the long term, although we note that Kottke has already had quite a few payments, arguably more as a result of the novelty of what he is proposing as opposed to any reasonable business plan. As Nick W notes at ThreadWatch: “it’s not a dreadful idea in itself, but if that’s his only idea for income generation on his website then he could well be up shit creek before too long…”. Kottke does not have any advertising on his site and apparently wishes to pursue other means of obtaining revenue and will not be considering advertising in the near future.
Good luck to him though, but boys and girls: don’t try this at home :-)
