Jason Calacanis retired from blogging. Jason retired because next to wanting to spend more time with his family, he believes blogging is dead. A controversial statement which guarantees a lot of response from bloggers. When blogging first became popular it was about connecting with an audience, building a lasting connection and having a conversation through comments. Like I often end my blog posts asking you to post a comment. Jason is right when he is saying that these days blogs are often no longer about the integrity of the content but the number of backlinks it receives, the number of page views and how high it ranks in Google.
Is this wrong or not? I believe that depends on how you portrait yourself. There are many bloggers these days that voice controversial opinions not because it is how they feel but because the secret to blogging success is response. Like they say "The only bad publicity is no publicity". Many bloggers have realized this and they play on it. Often to increase page views and so increase advertisement revenue but also just for the sheer enjoyment of 15 minutes of fame. As Jason says "Folks are so desperate to be heard-and we all want to be heard that's why we blog-that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual hearing."
This blog centers around my life but also my social media experiment "Have you talked to Eiso Kant yet?". Do I want to rank high and receive as many visitors as possible? In a way I do and in a way I don't. It is in direct line with the goal of my blog to reach out to as many people as possible and have a real conversation with them. I love having a conversation and I blog to receive comments. From those comments I get ideas and the conversation that comes from it is so much more valuable than what I initially wrote. However I have made a conscious decision to not blog for search engines or backlinks. As you can see there are no advertisements on this blog and I also have no aspirations to become an A-list blogger.
Jason has solved this problem by starting an email list. My initial response was that Jason was trying to go for the million dollar success, email marketers like Mike Filsaime have had. I then read his first email. He convinced me that he was actually looking for a real conversation and connection with his readers. I replied to his email:
Dear Jason,
When I first read your announcement on your blog I wasn't doubting if you were retiring from blogging but I was doubting your intentions. I thought "this guy who knows publishing inside and out, wants to do what guys like Mike Filsaime have done. That is make millions with promoting affiliates through newsletters.". Your email convinced me that is not what you are doing and it has given me an immediate respect for what you have accomplished and what are you doing now. I've studied your Mahalo Social Media Campaign and I've respected the way you've used tools like Twitter to promote your company. What you are doing now gives an extra dimension to you as Jason, the person and not Jason, The Social Media Machine.
I look forward to reading your emails and having a real conversation (140 characters are overrated).
Best regards,
Eiso
I think I will be proven right or wrong depending on if he will reply to my email. If you are trying to build a valuable connection you cannot just have a one-way conversation.