Blog Minx

There was an interesting debate/mild catfight going on in the comments of a John Chow Dot Com post the other day. John had written about whether doing off-topic posts was a good idea or not. He said he often received complaints when he did a restaurant review or some such, but “I personally get a nice chuckle out of those emails because it’s clear the reader doesn’t understand this blog started as a personal blog to post about whatever was on my mind.”

Some of the comments below his post were of the “You go, evil John! Wheee, here I am and click my link now!” caliber, but Blogging Experiment didn’t concur. He wrote: “John, you market this site as a blog about Making Money Online. You use it in your title tag, you use it throughout the site, and in all sorts of campaigns and schemes. However, you only deliver information on how to make money online a fraction of the time. That’s where the issue is. You promise one thing and deliver another.”

The JC Fan Club were unimpressed with this. He should write about what he wants, it’s his personal blog! they cried. Poor Blogging Experiment got a little bit flamed but stuck in there through to the end of the 95+ comments.

The dialogue raises the interesting question of blog ownership vs customer service. If someone comments on your blog every day, they probably feel a sense of community and ownership, and get disgruntled when they feel the blog isn’t reaching its full potential. On the other hand, the blog is run and owned by the blogger. They are not employed by anyone and can theoretically do whatever they want with it.

What do you think? Does the reader have the right to criticize a service they don’t pay for? Do you like to read personal posts on blogs that are mainly about a certain topic? As a blogger, how much do you take reader feedback into consideration?

Personally, I subscribe to John’s blog because he often has fresh ideas, and I skip the posts about restaurants or cars. The titles usually tell me if it’ll be something I want to read or not. Ultimately, if you don’t like something you vote with your mouse clicks.