It’s Time to Quit!

On March 17, I will quit blogging!

Relax folks, I am not talking about myself. I am talking about veteran problogger Joel. For the last 10 years Joel has been blogging at JoelOnsoftware.com. Joel’s blog is regarded as one of the best blogs in the software industry. The main audience of the blog comprised of Software Developers. Joel was very successful in using his blog to launch his own software company Fog Creek Software.

But after 10 years of blogging, Joel is ready to go offline! Joel claims that his blog has provided a very narrow channel to promote his company and its products. Joel feels that the time and energy spent on blogging is better spent on other activities to broaden the channel to market his company. Joel says his company Fog Creek has become a big fish in a very small pond!

I am sad to see Joel leaving blogging for good. He is an expert in his field of software development.

This whole story has prompted me to think about who are the target audience for our blog.

I think Joel’s company became the big fish is a small pond because Joel’s readers were mainly Software Developers. JoelOnSoftware became popular because it was a well focused niche blog catering to a specific group of people. But the narrow niche nature of this blog may have been the reason why Joel could not broaden the channel for promoting his company.  Software Developers are not managers and they are not in a position to make any buying decisions. This could be the reason why Joel couldn’t lead the big fish out of the small pond using his blog. Joel’s blog comprised of passionate readers but they were not decision makers.

Let’s take a simple example to illustrate this point. Let’s say that you are in the business of making candy. If you sell your products directly to kids, your business will not get the exposure it deserves. Your marketing plan should include ways to promote your products to other channels such as Super Markets, Corner Stores, Restaurants etc.

Even though Joel had a large group of followers, all of them came from the same category. This could explain why Joel couldn’t promote his business using his blog after a certain point was reached.

Another way to look at this issue is that Joel’s company has really out grown the need for a blog. Because the brand has become strong there is no need to attract clients using a blog. 

What do you think? Is blogging applicable only to small companies? Is blogging a dying medium to promote your business? Love to hear what you think about this story.

What puzzles me is that why Joel decided to say goodbye to blogging for good. For example, he could have still continued blogging and saved time by cutting down the number of posts. I take this opportunity to wish Joel good luck in his future efforts to expand his business.