Steven Berlin Johnson on blog advertising

One of the key books shaping my understanding of how networked blogs (aka the blogosphere) transcend traditional journalism is Steven Berlin Johnson’s Emergence: Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.” Johnson details how scores of unrelated players can collaborate and effect higher order behavior that mystifies observers who understand only top-down organizations.

So I was honored to be interviewed by Johnson for his latest article in Discover magazine. His overview: This is not a dream: You can make a chunk of change by writing a Web log.

Bit by bit over the past 10 years, the Web has erected a global platform for personal wisdom. Services like AdSense’along with other advertising outfits, including one called Blogads, which focuses exclusively on blogs’are simply the final plank. You can now compose, design, publish, promote, and make money from your writing without ever leaving your desk. Some high-profile bloggers’particularly in the world of political commentary’have attracted hundreds of thousands of people to their personal sites, making enough money from AdSense or Blogads to quit their day jobs. The liberal commentary site Daily Kos has a monthly audience that exceeds that of venerable magazines like The New Republic and The Nation.

I was a little surprised Johnson didn’t get into the blogosphere’s emergent behavior, but perhaps he’s saving that for Emergence II.