Changing blog focus for fun and profit

Who's There? is a pdf by Seth Godin about blogs and using them for business purposes and gaining readership. It's long, but not overly long. In colonial times, they would have called it a "pamphlet."

Godin boils blogs down to three types:

cat blogs – about your life and whatever happens to you
boss blogs – directed at a defined group with an intent to communicate to/among them
viral blogs – meant to spread ideas, written for strangers

I'm not sure those comprise an ideal taxonomy. What is dooce.com? Or kottke.org? These examples seem to straddle all three categories. But sans better alternatives, I'll use Godin's terms.

Quickthinking.net is currently a cat blog. I’d like to think that QT is at least an above-average cat blog, but without data to confirm or deny, that thinking is more accurately classified as “hoping.”

To become Internet famous and stop having to work, I'll need a viral blog. To incorporate 1,000 True Fans, it'll also need to be a boss blog.

I don't think QT is this viral/boss hybrid. I'm not sure yet whether I'd change it if I knew how. But I will need some bloggy Web presence to pull off the IF dream. The thing I haven't discerned yet is: what do I care enough about to become useful doing?

This is the essence of building a following on the Internet. You must be useful. I would hate to think that I wasn't useful yet in life. But again, we run into that think/hope disparity.

Still thinking. (And hoping.) If you have anything to add, leave a comment or email me.