I’m at much the same stage as yourself – I’ve started taking blogging more seriously and have friends who are getting into it as well.

I’ve found Wendy’s posts at eMoms to be really very good for blog ideas and inspiration – I can also heartily recommend fellow Aussies Darren Rowse (problogger.net) and Yaro Starek (entrepreneurs-journey.com).

As to brainstorming – I’ve found Seth Godin’s Edgecraft technique to be helpful – he talks about it in his book “Free Prize Inside”.

Hope this helps, and good luck with it.

Best regards, Andrew

It’s the same schtick in newsprint – let’s use the tourism industry as an example – I read a paid advertorial – which combines destination and hotel advertising revenue with a little bit of editorial copy from the Travel Editor talking about how wonderful that destination is – or worse, the destination themselves write the copy and it comes off as cheesy testimonial…Credible? Not really.

But if a travel writer writes a blurb saying “go to Bali, it’s awesome” – chances are, readers will take notice.

Same with Problogging….there’s always the bottom line, what’s in it for this person to promote this or that product or thing? –

So I tend to agree with Slatrat – go after the paid blogging only if it’s attached to a desk job of some sort – otherwise I doubt your revenue will ever really match the labour….but if it’s a labour of love…then go for it.

Hate to sound cynical and jaded – I flirted for a time with doing destination blogging – ie. doing hotel and attraction site visits and then writing up about them but again, as a surfer, if I were to stumble across those versus something from the tourist board, I would tend to take the tourist bureau write-up more seriously.

I think you would have an excellent viewpoint. But it can become a real slog.

You may be onto something with the UberGeek line. Few people with that level of technical expertise have your ability to communicate at a layperson’s level. The trick might be to deliver in bite-sized pieces… I do believe that the key to a successful blog is to be useful to your readers, whoever they may be and whatever the subject area, and that potential is certainly here.

I’ll stay tuned, all agog to see where this goes!

I really like a combination of your last idea, Brandy, and your input, Jen. (And beautiful site, Jen, btw… glad I went to visit!)

I am power-user level technical. I have been but am no longer a sysadmin/remote WAN/LAN admin, and I work in IT. I really enjoy figuring out and playing with some of the great technical tools that are out there. They can be really challenging for me, with steep and obscure learning curves. If that’s the case, they are completely out of the reach of the average layperson or nontechnical user on the street…

I think there may be a niche there — “Unpacking it 4 You” or something. The wheels are turning.

Thank you!