Webvisions this July

« links for 2006-06-01 | Main | links for 2006-06-05 »

June 01, 2006

I've been meaning to write about this for weeks now, but this July I'll be speaking at the Webvisions conference in Portland on how to make a living blogging.

I haven't talked about it very much here, but ever since I started dabbling in making a little revenue from my blogs, things have went well and revenue grew to the point that last fall I got to quit my job to tend to my web things full time. It's been both stressful to make the leap and tremendously rewarding.

I wrote about my first experiences with Adsense almost three years ago here and I don't think it's boastful to say that it sparked a revolution in blogging. Since then I've tried quite a number of other things out that are worth talking about and have gotten tons of experience worth sharing. In the past few years I've noticed a dozen or so "blog networks" pop up and a similar number of people that have sites dedicated to "pro blogging" but my personal beef with most advice you find online is that it often centers on search engine and adsense gaming. I think that's the wrong approach and want to present a more sensible one.

When Nick Finck asked me if I wanted to speak at Webvisions this year, my first thought was yeah I'd love to do an hour on how to build a business online without resorting to cheap tricks. It's been a long, hard road for the past 7 years doing this but it's really turned into something great for me. I feel like there is a wealth of information that isn't getting out there that could really help folks live their dreams and make a living from fooling around online. It is my first solo talk at a conference so that will be a new adventure, but it's good to get out of your comfort zone every once in a while and I've already spent a month researching my talk and am planning the next month honing it into something concise and useful.

So if you're in the Pacific Northwest this summer and you love posting to your blog more than the drudgery of your day job, take a few days off and come see me talk about how I do it. I'm also talking about solo web development vs. open source and business blogging that same day so it should be a fun (and busy) couple days for me.

Posted at June 1, 2006 10:18 AM

Comments

I can't tell you how disapointed I am that I'll be missing this.

Are you going to make slides / audio available to us east-coasters (and the rest of the World!).

I think it's fair to say that you've been a very quiet but strong infulence on bloging for money for a long time (I remember the little storm you caused with PVRBlog when it launched). Good on you!

Posted by: kastner at June 1, 2006 11:20 AM

I'm sure there will be audio of it, but I'm also considering writing up all aspects of stuff I'll be touching on and either do an ebook or series of posts here.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at June 1, 2006 01:19 PM

I'm curious what you define "solo web development" as -- are you referring to custom-building solutions, or picking commercial tools off the shelf?

Posted by: Darren James Harkness at June 1, 2006 02:31 PM

That talk was going to be a mix of things. Commercial server software vs. free open source software and open sourcing your website code vs. keeping it closed. Personally I do all my own custom development by myself using a commercial programming environment and software while my friend Michael uses OSS for his server and he releases both his code as open source and has some APIs. I think deep down we're both fans of both models of server software and website development, but we were basically going to do a compare/contrast in the time we have.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at June 1, 2006 03:14 PM

Thanks for the clarification -- I look forward to seeing your notes after the fact.

Posted by: Darren James Harkness at June 1, 2006 03:27 PM

A friend of mine and I will be attending this conference, and I am so excited for it! :) (I will be the redhead with the tall, skinny male friend. Lol.)

I'm also glad to see that your talk about professional blogging is going to be the only talk available during its time slot on Thursday morning to people who haven't registered for workshops. Otherwise I might have to try to drag my friend away from one of the Dev/Tech talks or something. ;)

Posted by: Erin MJ at June 1, 2006 04:04 PM

I am really looking forward to presentation and panel.

Posted by: vanderwal at June 2, 2006 06:48 AM

Your current situation is something I hope to achieve. Good luck at the conference. I wish I still lived in the PNW so I could attend.

Posted by: Sara at June 4, 2006 06:49 AM

Wow, good timing. I'll be down in Portland in July.

Posted by: Lester Nelson at June 4, 2006 04:37 PM

I can't tell you how disapointed I am that I'll be missing this. I'll be in Europe for holidays.

Posted by: classifieds100 at June 11, 2006 11:28 AM

I can't tell you how disapointed I am that I'll be missing this. I'll be in Europe for holidays.

Posted by: classifieds100 at June 11, 2006 11:30 AM

June 01, 2006

Webvisions this July

Comments

Post a comment

Upcoming

we endure

recent shots