Aussie Bloggers

Earlier this week resident moderator Karen met up with Darren Rowse, arguably Australia’s most famous blogger, for a perfectly civilised hour of chatting about blogging and he was most obliging in answering some of the questions posed by our members.

How do you learn to cope with so many people wanting a piece of you?

It is more just having people competing to stand in front of you, to get notice or attention. What I find difficult - and disappointing - is how I cannot personally help the sheer numbers of people who ask for help or advice. I do try, but I get stretched thin.

That’s why I don’t do memes; that’s why I rarely refer people to other sites which may be calling for donations for worthy causes. If I open that door, I will (and do) get flooded.

It’s also why I need an assistant now for 10 hours a week; to almost purely go through and approve or spam the comments I get on my blog. She now is savvy in knowing what a genuine comment is and what is not. It can be very time consuming. All that said I still spend at least 30 minutes a day also moderating comments.

Being so successful must inevitably result in criticism from time to time. How do you deal with this?

I’ve been dealing with it for five years now, so it washes off me more than it used to. It used to quite upset my blogging, and my patterns and moods would fluctuate accordingly. What I wish is perhaps before people write aggressive, attacking posts is that contact me first to perhaps figure out the problem or ask for clarification. What’s most interesting is that a lot of people don’t even think their negative remarks will come to my attention in the first place! I find that quite odd.

Do you think being an Aussie blogger is harder than it would be for other nationalities?

Well being in Australia actually helps with my Digital Photography blog because a lot of the breaking news in that niche comes out of the Asian district – in basically our time-frame – but also when America is sleeping. So in that respect I can sometimes ‘get the word out’ first by making an announcement. In America and Canada, though, there does seem to be a lot more face-to-face contact between bloggers, but that may just be simply due to the enormous population difference.

I have been surprised to find, flicking through the Aussie Blogger Forum members list, just how many bloggers I recognise there that are Australian and I didn’t realise beforehand.

Why is Carlton so consistently bad, year-in and year-out?

*laughs* Have you seen the line up for this year? 2008 will be different. Or in maybe 2-3 years.

Can you puncture some hype for us? For example, “Is it really all about quality?”

I wish I could just say, “Yes.” Full stop. But it simply isn’t that easy to define. What is ‘quality’? You could have a very marketable, funky blog with poorish writing which is still successful due to the other merits. Then there are the blogs which have reams of ‘quality’ writing which may not be as successful. I think a lot of it comes down to individual’s voices and how well they put their voice across. If it is clear, and has something to offer, with meaning, then I think that is good. Quality of writing is an important part of the mix - but unfortunately bloggers wanting to rise above the noise need more than just that. It takes quality in other areas too like marketing, SEO, branding, networking etc.

Do you think pro-blogging is sustainable in the short to medium term if there’s a recession and ad expenditure inevitably gets slashed?

It is a concern and it is something larger conglomerates – such as B5 media – will have to consider, more so perhaps than individual bloggers. If you look at certain graphs and reports you will see there has been a downturn for some marketing strategies, as some companies perhaps seek alternate methods of advertising. Some of it is seasonal, granted, but the truth is if a recession were to occur the first cuts companies would make is in the advertising sector. It’s just the way of things.

Darren, on a personal note, I’d like to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and meet me for our little chat, and I’m sure the readers here at Aussie Bloggers do too!