I recently quit my web design gig and -- as of today -- will be working on kottke.org as my full-time job. And I need your help.
Kottke向来习惯以平静的语气在他的Blog上书写。在这篇
宣告式的文章中，Kottke在宣布自己辞职而转为全职blogger的同时，也解释了自己对Blog的理解。
People leverage their blogs in order to write books, write for magazines or newspapers, pursue art or photography, go work for Gawker, Mediabistro, or Weblogs Inc., get jobs at startups, do freelance design (as I used to), start a software company, or as a vehicle to sell advertising. All worthy pursuits, but I'm interested in editing kottke.org as my primary interest; blogging for blogging's sake, I guess.
人们借他们的blog来写书，为杂志报纸撰稿，追求艺术或摄影，为Gawker、Mediabistro或者Weblogs Inc.打工，找工作，自由职业设计（像我从前那样），创建一家软件公司，或者作为广告载体。全都是有价值的追求，但是我是把编辑kottke.org作为我的主要兴趣来感兴趣的；为了blog而blog，我想。
Kottke还试图减轻读者对于网站风格可能发生的变化而产生的疑虑。他说一切都是为了更加专注于网站，网站既不会更加个人化，也不会变的专业化。
Kottke并没有采取广告的方式，他解释道：
There are currently two parties involved with kottke.org: me and the collective you. Advertising introduces a third party. In my experience, the third wheel of advertising often works to unbalance the relationship in favor of either the author or the readers (usually in favor of the author). If ads were involved, I might feel the need to change what or how I write to appease advertisers. I might write to increase pageviews and earn more revenue. I could fill pages with ads, earning more revenue but making the content more difficult to read or pushing some content off the page entirely. You could block advertising and deny me needed revenue.
None of that is appealing to me.
现在有关kottke.org的有两个部分：我和作为整体的“你”。广告则介入为第三方。以我的经验，广告的第三个轮子往往会使作者和读者的关系失衡（通常对作者更为有利）。如果广告介入，我可能会感到改变的必要，以迎合广告主。我也许为提高页面访问而写作并得到更多回报。我可以以广告填充页面，赚来更多收益，但是内容更加难读甚至把一些内容挤掉。你可以屏蔽广告并否认我必要的收入。
这些一点也不吸引我。
无论如何kottke的生活发生了重大的改变。他从曼哈顿搬到了布鲁克林以减少生活支出。他风趣地说：
It feels a lot like right after I got out of college...without the ramen noodles.
感觉好像我刚从大学出来那会儿……没有拉面。
我所知道最先报道的网站是MetaFilter。评论者甚至提出Save Kottke的口号。实际上，我和这些人一样对Kottke的决策抱着怀疑的态度，认为这样的行为背后仍然是深深的理想主义而缺乏Blog生存的现实土壤。今天的Wired News果然发出了声音，可是我却没有从中看到什么确定的观点。一方面认为Kottke不采用广告的行为具有风险，另一方面也指出广告并不适合Blog的商业化模式。
好在Kottke在他的网站中发布了捐赠者的名单。他说有几百人在AIM上与他联系，他对自己的决策表示乐观。
Red Herring: $2.50 for your thoughts
Trackback: http://tb.donews.net/TrackBack.aspx?PostId=286670