Quoted in The New York Times – The Power of Blogging

July 15, 2008

The New York Times

At this point, you really can’t question the power of blogging. It works. There are examples of blogging working across different industries, for different reasons. It’s great for customer service. It’s great for building up a following (that you can then leverage into all kinds of different businesses.) Blogging might not be for everyone, but you can’t deny it’s value. Even when some people are supposedly quitting…

After all, look at what happened to yours truly recently — I was quoted in The New York Times (free registration required).

Truth be told, I didn’t even know the author, Paul B. Brown, was going to quote me. I’d never heard of him until a reader emailed me to congratulate me. My guess is that Mr. Brown used Google to search for relevant content related to his article and came across my blog. Unless he’s been a faithful reader for some time, but the article he quoted was from April 2007.

In Mr. Brown’s article, Being Serious About Your Own Money, he’s taking about how entrepreneurs often forget to manage their personal finances, because they’re so focused on their businesses. Often, entrepreneurs put their personal finances at huge risk to accommodate and support their business ventures.

The article he quoted that I had written way back when was on that very subject — Entrepreneurs Should Plan Their Finances And Invest Wisely. I re-read my post and it’s certainly true; it’s easy to forget your own finances, let things slip (even paying bills, or paying yourself!) and get overwhelmed in an avalanche of financial trouble…

It was cool to be quoted in The New York Times. It was great that one of my readers pointed me to the article. I really do owe Mr. Brown a thank you…

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Comments
  • Does your hat fit your head anymore? ;-). Very nice being quoted in the NY Times. Time to hit the speaking circuit.
  • Tanguy
    Interesting article, great resource. See that it is interesting antiquités objets d'art
  • There is a lot of power in the blogosphere. We get a lot of hits from search results because the search engines love us and we can pretty much push ideas around. Look at Ron Paul for instance. I personally don't share his beliefs, but this shows what a few people can do.
  • Hey congrats! Love your blog
  • That's a nice feather in your cap. Did the article in the NY times help drive any additional traffic to your site?
  • Ben, you are the man! Getting quoted in the NYT is a big deal. Big. Congrats. Hope all is well and take care.

    Regards,
    Terry
  • Very interesting that NY Times is quoting bloggers...perhaps the highest form of journalistic flattery?
  • I find it flattering when I have reporters calling up asking to speak to anyone from my team that runs my websites. They refuse to realize that blogging is very mainstream and that lots of people read because they are interested in the topics being discussed.
  • Great topic. Read the article and could not agree more. This is so true of entrepreneurs both on line and offline. I know this from first hand experience. And I agree that when starting and operating a small business, all your energies are spent in taking care of the business and you seldom think about your own retirement and mortality. Running a business is like running a marathon; you cannot be thinking about lunch when you should be concentrating on running. But then again, lunch time will soon come just like retirement age will soon dawn. This article does give food for thought. Thank you for increasing the awareness.
  • Nicely done Ben. I just started blogging and I am already learning many lessons on how to build a reputation in my field, Telemedicine.
  • Sorry Ben, didn't see your handle comment - sure does help to have good anchor text but I understand. Good going on the write up!
  • Congrats. I would love to get quoted by the NYTimes and drive traffic to my blog. How did you do it?

    Julie
  • Congrats, this is definitely a milestone in your blogging career. Next on, you may want to publishing a novel? :)
  • I agree with Andy in #4 comment. Definitely a nice spot to be mentioned in the NYT. Speaking in public is the next step :)
  • Sad you didn't get an active link from NY times. I guess it would have done wonders to your rankings to get a link from such a respected site as NY times.

    Congratulations anyway though.
  • @Andy: I had a big head already ... hats rarely fit well. *smile*

    @Julie: I didn't do anything specific to get quoted in the NYT, I didn't even know it happened until someone pointed it out, so the reporter didn't reach out to me first. My guess is that he was searching online for some specific things, and some of my blog posts popped up. The post was from 2007, which goes to show you that your old content can still prove relevant and valuable in the long term.

    @jeflin: No time for a novel at this point ... who knows in the future!
  • If you didn't think you made it before, you should now. I hope you have more fame coming, but you already got 15 minutes in one of the biggest papers in the world.
  • debating on blogging for patients. I don't think it would be too hard to provide health related info...just not sure yet.
  • Wow! Congratulations! I surely would want to be acknowledged too. Being a blogger for almost a year now, my post are usually from my essay and poem personal collection. I value my writings so much and I love to share it to the public. Keep on providing good blogs!:)
  • Sad you didn't get an active link from NY times. I guess it would have done wonders to your rankings to get a link from such a respected site as NY times.
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