Blogging for the Ears

In researching a story about Apple's new iPods and podcasting that should appear on InformationWeek.com shortly, I spoke with Royal Farros, CEO of MessageCast, Inc.

While discussing how podcasting and blogging are related activities, Farros made an interesting observation about bloggers."I like to refer to the blogging community as the world's best customers," he said. "They're people that are doing things because they're passionate about it. They're actually not expecting to get paid for it. They don't have any money. They appreciate the heck out of free services. They want you to make some money so that you can continue to offer them free services. And if you can cut them in, then they're just giddy."

It's true many bloggers are amateurs, in the sense of the word that means doing something for the love of it. But blogging looks a lot more commercial to me these days than it did a few years ago.