Blogging Heroes

Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers
Michael A. Banks
Wiley, 2008

I had a tough time with this book; on one hand it's kind of interesting finding out how people, in many cases, fell into blogging, yet a lot of the stories are variations of the same story: got started writing, people kept reading, competition dried up and here we are today, in fact, many of the blogs profiled have been running for several years now. The title has been derided in a number of blogs (personally I too, think it's a bit like a CNN headline- after all we're not not talking hockey heros here or something); However, if readers get past the title, they'll find it an interesting read, with perhaps some hints if they're thinking of starting their own.

In the end, I approached this as an anthropological text (uni-speak for 'book/magazine/etc.') about the kind of people who get into blogging, and are successful enough at it to warrant including in the book, probably by virtue of writing for enough years to acquire a sizable readership and thus get recommended to the author of the book. In fact, the author spells out the process he used for finding his 30 bloggers right in the preface, basically starting with various searches through Technorati, Digg and others to determine the initial list and then narrowing it down. Reader interested in doing their own interviews, might learn something from this section too, for instance, the insistance by the author of doing interviews live, as opposed to on-line was part of a strategy to get more out of the interviewee.

Each chapter profiles a single blog, starting with a quote from the blogger. It then follows with a question and answer format that covers the what, why and how of the blog in question. The layout is a bit uninspired, but clean, with pull-quotes from the blogger. The chapters end with a “points to review” section that sums up the main points in the chapter.

Questions asked range from the technical details of how much time they spend on search-engine optimization or if they use RSS feeds, to the more general like, “Are there any parts of the job that are particularly difficult?” or “What has been the most gratifying experience [blogging]?” As well, there are questions about what it's like to work for a blogging network as well as being a blogging employee. This is one of the best aspects of the book- it covers the spectrum from blogs on parenting to cars to business as well as the expected technology favourites that are often written-up in the tech. press. So, yes, this is a book worth at least skimming and probably worth a read if you're thinking of getting into blogging yourself or maybe just anybody looking to get a clear idea on what running a blog is about.

Published: 26th December, 2007