Om Malik on Broadband: End of the Personal Blogger Pointed out on the Topix blog feed 12/7/2004.
This is just one of a recent pile of articles lamenting the commercialization of the blogosphere and the fact that the money and attention is still (they say again) going to the professional marketing folks. This is the same thing that people said about the internet a while ago.

Why do you blog? I don't blog for money, but I have no problem with anyone who does as long as they are upfront about it. Blogging is a channel, a tool, a format. It does not follow that the content must necessarily be _______. Many of the columns in magazines and traditional media tell corporate bloggers to "keep it real" or to maintain an "authentic" voice to get readers. I guess it depends on your audience? Companies have gotten burned making up fake bloggers, too.

I blog for PKM, networking, KFTF... IOW I agree with Efimova's reasons (stated here and here). J points to some other reasons people blog. Most say they have similar reasons. If you pay attention, however, when a blogger notices that he/she has gained an audience, the blog changes tone. It's now someone talking to a known audience, no longer the jotting of random thoughts. I'd love to have the time to actually track over time the diction, tone, etc., in a blog to the # of subscribers or hits to the site. I bet you'd see some sort of correlation.

All of these random thoughts do have a point: blog for your purpose and audience (whether it's yourself or 5M crazed admirers). Let others blog for their purpose and audience. Don't lament the evolution of the channel, it's not becoming.
  ¶ 9:52 AM| |cites (technorati) |