Q&A

Are Bloggers Entrepreneurs?

I started thinking about this question a few weeks ago when I was on a flight from SF to Las Vegas.  I bought a copy of entrepreneur magazine at the airport and read through it during my two day vacation in the city of sin.  I lost my shirt by the way, which probably added to my desire to supplement my income with a business…stupid gambling…stupid craps…stupid blackjack…argh.

Making money from a blog seems to be a very touchy subject in the blogosphere as I recently learned from a thread on the Bloggeries forum. You can check it out here.

The debate was intense.  There were two main factions; one group thought that blogging should NEVER involve ads or any money making venture and the second had the opposite opinion.

My personal opinion is that blogging has evolved from being solely an online “journal” to a platform that can be used for a valid business venture.  Of course, those who wish to journal about their opinions and experiences without ads or any money making scheme should feel free to do so.

Back in the day, when I first started working in the world of the interwebs, the only way to make money online was through a website.   In order to develop your own site, however, took a little bit of education and the learning curve could be steep for those with little or no experience with computers.

Today the situation has changed.  With the advent of blogging software, like wordpress, anyone can quickly set up a blog site and start running a buisness.  Blog software today even makes it easy for someone to have a store setup in a few clicks.  And with companies like CafePress, you can have your logo printed on t-shirts and mugs in minutes!

Of course, as with any business, you need to have a product.  If you want to make money, there should be something of value in your blog.  It can be instructions, information, or an e-product.  In fact, it can be anything really as long as it has some value to the people coming to your blog.  What I can’t stand are the ‘scammy’ blogs that exist solely to make money by tricking people on the interwebs.

So I say “yes” bloggers can be entrepeneurs like any other online business.

What do you think?

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Pic by Thomas Hawk

How to Add Video to Your Blog

Jolene over at OldLovelyMoon recently asked me how to embed video into a blog.

Well here’s the answer.

In a video.

In my blog.

Clever…no?

This video was created by Jack Humphrey from FridayTrafficReport.com.  I learned how to embed this video into SBT from watching it.  It’s quick and very clear.  Enjoy.

I’ve found quite a few videos on YouTube about blogging and I’ll be posting the best of the best.  Someday I’ll buy a video camera and make my own.  BestBuy here I come!

Did that help?  It’s really, really simple.  Go ahead and add a video to your blog from YouTube and tell me about it.  I would love to come by and see how it’s going.

Q&A

I created this post because someone asked me a question about video.  If anyone out there has other questions about blogging, let me know.  Even if I don’t know the answer right away, I’ll do the research and post the information here at SBT.

Good Luck!