At the core of much of the great innovation on the Web in recent years is the independent publisher: the blogger meticulously tagging her content and tweaking her RSS code into the wee hours of the night, or the photo junkie figuring out new ways to post and share his shots of street art across the country in real-time.

And independent publishing online is only growing. According to a Pew Internet study, a new weblog is created every 7.4 seconds, yielding an average of 12,000 blogs per day.

But what about webzines?

This weekend in San Francisco, many webzine and online publishing innovators will meet at Webzine 2005—"a real world, face-to-face celebration of independent publishing on the Internet."

The conference is relaunching after a four-year hiatus and will feature panels on such topics as "Levelling the Playing Field: Journalism Online" and "Podcasting: The Democratization of Broadcast?"

We spoke to conference organizer Eddie Codel about blogs versus webzines, the "vlogosphere", and making—or not making—money off independent publishing.

So we haven't seen the Webzine conference in a while. Where have you been hiding all this time?

The irrational exuberance of the dot-com era sucked up a lot of our energies. It wasn't until this year that things really seemed to change. So many more people are blogging, creating, expressing themselves. Many new tools make it easier for new people to publish. The technology hurdles are reduced, while the breadth of options for publishing have increased.

Who do you think has more influence, either culturally or politically, right now: a widely read blogger or a widely read webzine? Do you think people are more likely to respond to an individual or collective voice online?

I consider a blog a form of a webzine, so it's not really an either-or question. That said, blogs and other webzines are just mediums to deliver a message. Whomever has the more interesting message within a given set of mediums is gonna get heard, no matter if they are an individual or a collective. Politically, DailyKos and Drudge are intensely popular individual webzines, but they still wouldn't be what they are without input from their readers on the 'net. Same thing with BoingBoing, which is a collective effort. BoingBoing also relies on contributions from its readers. To me, the more successful blogs or webzines are the ones that value and utilize input from their readers. It enables the audience to "be the media" in a sense.

What technologies do you anticipate people talking about at the conference? Are there any technologies released in the past year that have changed the face of independent publishing on the Web?

Plenty. I think Flickr is one the more interesting ones that has hit critical mass recently. Anyone with a cheap digital camera can instantly plug into a community of likeminded photo freaks. Not only that, Flickr's open API lends itself to some interesting integration with blogging software and search engine indexes. It's a technology tool that offers more than you can see on the surface. Podcasting and vlogging will be well represented at Webzine this year. Podcasting is really taking off now that almost everyone has an iPod and Apple has embraced it in iTunes. Vlogging or video logging is a bit more nascent, but I think it'll be just as important if not more so than podcasting. Vloggers are still a small, but very tight and supportive community. Considering there may only be 2,000 vloggers worldwide right now, it's amazing to see the number of meetups and vlog specific events that crop up. We have some of the major vlogging players presenting on a panel and doing a how-to workshop. Expect to see many cameras and quickly edited videos being uploaded to the "vlogosphere" in almost real time.

With few exceptions (such as Salon and Slate, though they obviously receive funding from investors and Microsoft, respectively, as well), webzines continue to be money-losing ventures. Some blogs are relatively profitable (the Gawker Media ventures come to mind), but not overwhelmingly so. I realize that most people don't get into independent publishing—Web or otherwise—to make money, but do you think Web-based publications will ever make financial sense?

Sorry to get all Bill Clinton on you, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by "financial sense". I think you can certainly make a living if you have something that addresses a niche area, or you can build a huge audience. For most people with a passion, "sense" is going to be some additional income to give them that boost to keep their site going. We do have one panel coming together on Sunday that addresses the money issue, titled $elling Out: Making money doing what you love. Philip Kaplan, aka Pud of F*ckedcompany fame, is leading that one. Turning passion into profit is definitely a sticky issue that I think everyone needs to evaluate individually. To what degree do you need profit to practice your passion?

Discuss Blogs, Webzines and the Money Question   I strictly recommend not to hold off until you earn enough cash to buy goods! You... >>> Post your comment now!

>>> More Web Design Articles          >>> More By Jami Attenberg