An Interview with Chris Garrett
Chris Garrett is a professional blogger, and has written for the likes of Pro Blogger and Blog Herald, along with his own blog Chrisg.com.
He founded his company in 2005, called OMIQ, which provides services for bloggers including Blog Critiques, Consulting Calls, and personal coaching.
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to interview Chris - so here it is:
When did you start blogging and why?
Like many people my first blog was a diary. It was back when they weren’t called weblogs, it wasn’t called blogging. Everyone had “personal homepages”, pictures of cats and links to our friends. Kind of myspace but without the easy tools! I was inspired by people like camworld and Robot Wisdom. It was only later that I saw the commercial potential.
If you had to give one tip to a blogger what would it be?
Put your reader first. It’s all about THEM not you. If I had to give just one tip to a beginning blogger though it would be to just write. If you can’t get that bit right there is no point in learning all the other stuff it takes to be a good blogger. If the writing part comes easy then of course you have an advantage over the majority of us but decent writing is crucial.
I say decent because you don’t need to be perfect and can get better with practice and with feedback. So if you are starting out, before thinking of adsense riches, just start up a personal blog, you can get one running at wordpress.com in minutes, and just practice.
What do you think the long term future is in blogging and blogs?
Give it 5-10 years and there won’t be such a thing as blogs. There will always be articles, news, etc, but the word “blogging” will probably sound as archaic as “gopher”. Already many bloggers don’t use that label.
I don’t agree with the people who think podcasting and video is the future. Those things will be popular but text isn’t going to go away. How we read might change, for example we are rapidly becoming an continuously online culture, but peoples need for written content will stay constant therefore there will always be some sort of “online writer” regardless of what the name for such a person becomes.
What 6 things have you learnt about blogging in the past year?
1. When it seems it’s all over it is just a new beginning
2. Don’t let people get you down. Words are just wind.
3. There is always someone smarter, more talented, better, don’t “compete”.
4. Focus on what *you* can do to provide value *your* way
5. You are always worth more than you think
6. If you believe you can or can’t, either way you are right
Will Google take over the World?
Haven’t they already? I believe they will dominate until after the turn of the decade when someone will come out of the blue and encroach on their market, possibly someone from within the organisation or possibly from China. So they will take over the world then have it taken from them.
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Filed under: Interviews on June 9th, 2007
Well done, Darren. A great little interview with some key questions. The six things question was excellent, and Chris came back with six corking points. That was worth the price of admission itself!
Great stuff.
Thanks Rory, watch this space for some more blogger interviews soon
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“Don’t let people get you down. Words are just wind.” Great advice! Thanks Chris.
Just for your reference, another interview with Chris can be found on my Blogs and Bloggers site.
Good interview - I enjoyed reading it. I appreciate the list of six things you learned.
Welcome to Blogged out to any new readers