An interesting auxiliary thread has developed over the past few days. It has to do with blog platforms.

So, it’s not really a new discussion but it seems to be cropping up again a bit. It has to do with paid blog platforms versus free blog platforms.

Before I go any farther, let me say that although I’m a WordPress fan and advocate, I completely recognize that platforms should not be the focus. It should be the content. And platforms should essentially be transparent to the blogger. Get out of the way and let the blogger blog. Realistically, some people need more than a blogging platform and need a full featured content management system. I get it.

However, for new bloggers with so many quality, free options available, it boggles my mind that anyone would pay for a blog?

It seems even at home plate, at Lijit, there seems to be a tendency to use Typepad (which boggles my mind) and in corporate settings, Expression Engine seems to have legs.

I asked this question on Twitter:

Here’s a question for everyone: why on earth would you choose Typepad for your blog platform when starting out? Who pays for blog platforms?

Responses were varied an interesting:

• Dave Taylor from AskDaveTaylor.com: because Movable Type is rock solid, super reliable and doesn’t suffer from continual hacking attempts.
• Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions: At a conf the speaker said paid blog platforms are slightly better for Search engine scores
• Barbara K. Baker from KolbeMarket.com: history of paying for software in corps & orgs. believe free means inferior. fear of open source. blame microsoft?
• Nicholas Tolson from Degeeked.com: I pay for EE, because it is SO much more than just a “blogging platform” & more flexible, more powerful, more secure than WP.
• Ewan Spence from The Podcast Network: Companies that need a support contract as part of their Purchase ‘in-house’ rules?
• Cecily K from UpeerCaseWoman: Because some of us started before Wordpress existed. :D
• Sadandbeautiful from SadandBeautiful.com: Because I didn’t know any better at the time. :-)
• Kelly Erb Philips from Taxgirl.com: I did a few years ago because they used to have exceptional tech support - which I needed when I first started.
• Leslie Poston from UptownUncorked.com: I did a few years ago because they used to have exceptional tech support - which I needed when I first started.
• Tront Astic: ease of use? Typepad does a good job of selling the hassles of ‘hosting your own blog’ to those who don’t know better

I certainly don’t want to get into a platform war. Whatever makes your job as a blogger easier. But with so many really great free options out there, who pays for a blog platform and why?

I want to give a quick shout out to Aaron Phillips at Fastservers.net who recognized me and grabbed me out of a crowd of booth scopers while I was at Blog World Expo last month.

He offered me a fantastic offer to move this blog, as well as the rest of my sites over to a super fast server on their network. Ironically, Jeremy Wright and I did business with Fastservers way back in the day when we ran a hosting company together, but everyone was pretty immature at that point and we ended up leaving Fastservers for supposedly greener pastures.

At the end of the day all that didn’t work out but having run server clusters and dealing in the space for a long time now, it’s important to have the reliability of support, backups and reliable disks and memory.

I jumped at the offer and we’re now in a new home. There will be further optimization over the next few days, but I’m pretty happy. They handled the entire migration process and for once I didn’t have to lift a finger. Gotta love that.

So thanks, Aaron and team. Looking forward to my new home.

It was quite interesting to watch the market swing yesterday. Apple (AAPL) took a 20% hit on the market last week when it was expected that consumer spending on “bling” would be reduced. “Bling” stocks like Apple, Starbucks (SBUX) and other companies representing consumers “living the life” mentalities tanked with futures projections.

And then yesterday came. Duncan Riley had an exclusive reporting the imminent release of an $800 laptop from Apple, the first sub-$1000 machine ever in the line of Apple products. From there, well read blogs like VentureBeat, MacRumors and Gizmodo - to name just a few - ran with the story.

Later in the day, Engadget reported an October 14th event where Apple would announce their new laptop line. Former Engadget editor, Ryan Block, 9 to 5 Mac and Digital Daily - again, to only name a few - ran with the story.

The result was fascinating. The DJIA is currently down over 300 points indicating yet another bloodbath on Wall Street. However, Apple stock is through the roof, up almost 5 points at this moment.

I am in no way suggesting people should go about trying to manipulate the market by creating stories or otherwise fabricating false positive pressure on the market. That is a crime. However, it’s important for blogger to recognize their ability to affect the market for the positive or negative.

And the pressure remains on the top-tier bloggers to use that power wisely and recognize that their words matter. If ever there was a “responsibility” at the feet of these bloggers, it is now.

The Valley, which has so far been most unaffected by the downturn in the economy, may be reaching the end of it’s golden thread. Sequoia Capital, one of the largest Venture Capital firms in the Valley, had a meeting with their portfolio companies advising them to “tighten their belts” according to Om Malik of GigaOm.

The message delivered to those in attendance was that things could get a lot worse than people think, and it will be a more protracted downturn. To give a historical perspective, Sequoia had a similar meeting back before the last bubble unraveled burst. We know how that turned out.

Hot on the heels of Sequoias meeting, angel investor Ron Conway sent an email to the CEOs of his potfolio companies advising them, in the words of Mike Arrington, of a bleak immediate future:

You should lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months or more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to “raising an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible. Letting go of staff is hard and often gut wrenching. A re-evaluation of timelines and re-focus on milestones with the eye of doing more with less will allow you to live many more days, and the name of the game in this environment in some respects is survival–survival until conditions change.

Brad Feld, an investor in Lijit who I work for, echoes my sentiments from yesterday (or rather, I echoed his since he went first):

My recommendation to all of you entrepreneurs out there is to get off the negative sentiment treadmill, step up, and lead. The people working for your company are likely confused, concerned, and overwhelmed with all the noise in the system. In the near term, building your business will likely be more challenging on a number of dimensions. So what - that’s the normal cycle of business. You don’t need to be a blind optimist and spout happy talk, but you do need to have a clear sense of purpose and goals for your company. Leadership 101.

Times get tough. The people that approach the challenge with some clarity in their thoughts are the ones that will emerge on the other side stronger than ever and positioned to be the next generation of winners in this space.

Wow, so two weeks ago I wanted to write about technology and business. And I still do (and will). However, there comes a time when an adjustment needs to be made, and for me that time is now.

The economy is in the tank with no end in site. Asian markets dropped 9% overnight and the European markets took a battering until the coordinated move of central banks moved to adjust interest rates around 4am this morning.

Banks are closing left and right and the government is bailing not only the banks out, but also commercial entities. In the last few days, no fewer than three people I know have lost their jobs.

People are scared, and rightly so. This is the darkest hour in recent history, rivaled only by 9/11.

Last night on FriendFeed, my friend and colleague Robert Scoble was fretting about the downward spiral. Scoble, to his credit, was trying to work the fear out of his system. Some people felt he should step up and be a leader and inspire confidence, while others felt his pain and lamented with him.

For my purposes, I’m scared as hell, but I’ve chosen to be confident. This is not a false confidence. This is a confidence based in reality and historical context.

Look, folks. Things are going to get worse before they get better. I like Jason Calacanis’ point in in one of his most recent newsletters entitles (The) Startup Depression:

Depending on your DNA, getting your ass kicked is either complete
torture or deviantly rewarding. Truth be told, I like getting my ass
kicked because it makes me angry, motivated and focused. If I look
back on the couple of moments of success I’ve been lucky enough to
have in my life, they all seem to come after a good ass-kicking.

The darkest hour is–in fact–right before the dawn.

I’ll also never claim to be an economist, but I read and listen to smart economists and money-people. I look at evidence they provide and I run it through my bullshit filter and what comes out the other side gets stashed in my collective. I reconcile conflicting data and try to understand those conflicts.

Here’s what I (think) I know.

Human nature is all about patterns. When a pattern changes abruptly, it takes us out of comfort zones and can sometimes induce panic. It happens when you lose a job. It happens when you meet your girlfriends parents for the first time. It happens when you transfer into a new school. And it happened when the market started selling off at 500 points a pop.

In the case of the market, 500 points looks big - and it is - and the ramifications for someone like me or you who are not traders and don’t understand the nuances of the market are psychologically intimidating.

Fear breeds a lack of confidence. A lack of confidence breeds fear.

Because humans are a people of patterns, after a few weeks of major drops on the market, a pattern and a cognitive comfort level sets in. Investors begin to see opportunities instead of challenges. Bargain buyers go thrift shopping and a rebound begins.

In my investment armchair, I see the end in sight. We are not there. We are going to see lots more before it turns up. But, my instinct tells me we are nearing a bottom. That doesn’t mean things turn around overnight.

In fact, I expect a lot more people to lose their jobs. The web sector has been largely immune, but will probably get walloped hard too. I spoke yesterday of staying in a self-employment situation if you can and staying in a stable 9-5 if that’s where you are now.

Which brings me full circle. We need leaders. We need people who are going to step up and instill confidence. Fred Wilson did this yesterday and I want to see more from a fiscally minded individual like him (he’s a VC). Scoble is still trying to process it all, and that’s expected, but I hope he will come to grips and start inspiring people at some point.

All of the proverbial A-listers need to step up their games right now and be leaders. In the days to come, I’m likely to write a series of posts on leadership. In the months to come, I’ll also take a much bigger look at the economy in the web space and outside. In World War II, homemaking women went to work in the factories to support the men in battle. It’s our responsibility to take the positions we have and do good in the economy and for our space.

So, though I’ll continue to write about the web, business, technology etc - I’m also going to be talking economics. I don’t know everything, but what I learn I hope to pass back. We will get through this because we have to.