Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of paidContent.org, the incredibly popular digital media news blog that's run by Rafat Ali. Rafat, who seems to spend his days wandering around the conference circuit getting scoop after scoop on the business, has made his name in that time and is now generally regarded as one of the most successful reporter/blogger hybrids.
Today another prominent tech blogger, Om Malik, has decided that he's quitting his job at Business 2.0 to turn full-time blogging reporter. I suppose Om will produce a site similar to paidContent but focused on broadband technology - perhaps wider, too.
It's part of an interesting transition taking place where a number of writers, pundits and technologists are finding their feet as bloggers and actually making (or trying to make) a living out of it. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch recently celebrated a year of doing so, and we recently saw Mac pundit John Gruber (Daring Fireball) go full-time as a writer thanks to the popularity of his site. (Jason Kottke, if you remember, blogged for a year thanks to contributions from his readers)
But it goes both ways. After all, the weekend was full of tech sites buzzing furiously - and somewhat bizarrely, in my opinion - about Robert Scoble's decision to quit Microsoft and join podcasting startup PodTech.net.
But although Scoble's unlikely to become a bigger name after this move, his decision isn't really any different from Om Malik's. I suppose it's all about personal brand and personal profit: if you're a serf who is able to build up enough name recognition through the net, then you might have a chance to break free of your day job and get something better. Malik is the latest example of that; Scoble chose to join a start-up rather than simply turn full-time independent blogger, but it's only the recognition he gained through his blog that got him to that particular point.
