Richard MacManus
Read/WriteWeb
Read/WriteWeb
“The really popular blogs are the ones
where readers can tell the author is passionate about the topic.”
where readers can tell the author is passionate about the topic.”
Like so many bloggers, Richard MacManus started blogging as a hobby, a means of sharing his thoughts on technology—Web 2.0 in particular. He was a corporate web manager until August 2005, when he quit the day job and went to work for himself—his first venture into business. Since its launch in 2003, Read/WriteWeb has evolved into a lineup of offerings that includes web technology news, reviews, and analysis, with some www.readwriteweb.com emphasis on startups and beta products. It is the first blog in MacManus’s Read/WriteWeb Network, a group of web technology blogs. His other sites are last100 (www.last100.com/), which is a blog about the digital lifestyle, and AltSearchEngines (www.altsearchengines.com/), which is a source of news and commentary on search engines and content aggregators. Additional blogs for the network are planned.
Like many bloggers interviewed in this book, Richard MacManus is an example of what can happen when you dig in and work at something for which you have passion. The rest of the recipe follows that of most successful bloggers:
- Choose a niche topic you are passionate about and know about.
- Focus on your topic.
- Raise your profile by posting to other, related blogs.
- Connect with other bloggers in the community who share your areas of interest.
- Be prepared to commit a lot of time and energy to blogging.
- Don’t count on making lots of money right away.