Note: These are my notes from this panel, and are not edited very well.

Jason Kottke, kottke.org
Heather Armstrong Author, Blurbodoocery, dooce.com

Jason: I don??????t like advertising. Didn??????t want that on his site.

Heather: I didn??????t want to do a subscription model. Didn??????t want my readers to make unreasonable demands.

Jason: I had 1500 bosses. Micropatrons. Most people gave around $30. Kind of like a magazine subscription. Began thinking of them as shareholders. It became a roadblock, and the relationship with the web site changed. Became more like a job. It couldn??????t just be whatever he wanted.

Heather: bad first response to Google ads. I really wanted to have complete control.

Jason: Going professional took himself out of the website. Has become less about him, more about what he??????s interested in.

Has the personal aspect affected traffic?

Jason: personal sites develop a personality that drives traffic.

Heather: Advertising has given her more time to be more personal. Hasn??????t changed the content of her site.

How do you separate Heather the person and Dooce the site:

Heather: keeps it separate in her mind. People don??????t really know me. But that doesn??????t affect the relationship people have with the web site.

What is your day like?

Jason: Office, you can bounce ideas off each other. Married to newsreader and browser.
Might explore putting ads on the site. Not going to use subscription model. Didn??????t work for me, wasn??????t right for me. People supported me because they were paying for previous effort.

Heather: Jason, you??????re good for links. We wanted to see you succeed. What is your standard for success? She thought he was successful.

Jason: Hard on himself. Wanted to do something different. I had big plans or ideas, but I never did that.

Thinks posting more every day has an impact on growing traffic. Absolutely. I??????ve learned that the remainder links are good for keeping people you already have. There??????s something new there every few hours. It??????s like crack. The longer posts are good for getting people in the door.

Heather: People don??????t come to my site for the updates. I think people come to my site for a story. Must be able to live the content. Must have time to develop the story.

Jason: Traffic elicits a certain amount of responsibility. Doesn??????t want a community to develop around his site. Interested in people having focused conversations. High level.

Heather: still working through the definition of what she??????s doing.

What do you think about getting paid to blog?

Heather: naysayers are jealous. Made a comparison to a columnists in a daily paper, except she??????s got her own publishing system.

Jason: people will buy tangible items in a way that they won??????t buy content on a web site.