And I think that’s where the SEO/PR/Marketing community is missing the boat. They’re looking for a convenient, expedient means to sell products and services rather than quality venues in which to sell them. They only care about page rank and search engine traffic. They don’t have a clue who is actually reading those blogs or the overall reason why they read them. That’s assinine.

I think another problem is that the term “blog” has never been well-defined. For example, when the mainstream media refers to bloggers and the blogosphere, they are usually referring only to a specific group of blogs and bloggers (as if the majority of the blogosphere didn’t even exist). Another part of this is that the terms “blog” and “blogging platform” are often confused so that even though one might be using Wordpress or Typepad, he may well be using the platform for a purpose other than blogging — something Wordpress actively encourages as it seems to be evolving from a blogging platform into a full-blown content management system. A recent example of this is the Prime Minister of the U.K. using Wordpress to power the ministries homepage (give it time and WP will probably resemble Joomla — at least in terms of its many uses).

And while it is still true that “content is king,” content is not synonymous with quality information or quality writing. Any idiot can install a blog platform and post a bunch of content. Doesn’t mean it’s interesting or informative or even entertaining.

Right now, blogs are fashionable. Fashionable, but not a fad. I think what we’re going to see after the dust settles on Web 2.0 is that serious bloggers are going to have to become better writers (not psuedo-writers as so many are) and much more saavy about how they network, because all these fake-ass bloggers with their artificially inflated page ranks and questionable content will not thrive in the future. It’ll be sink or swim for those in it strictly for the money. The irony being that in order to make money, they will have to care about something other than making money.

Secondly, I totally agree with you. If you’re bog is all about money and hits and you aren’t enjoying writing it then what’s the damn point? The day I stop having fun blogging is the day I quit for good.