Despite its alleged benefits, blogging costs time. And time is money. A new paper by Max Christian Hansen argues that new blogger should count the cost before they enter the fray. Ian Delaney examines the arguments.

Hansen's full paper is available here. At 32 pages, it is an easy - and very enjoyable - read. What follows is a paraphrase of some of the most pertinent arguments.

The main point is that starting a new blog now is like joining a multi-level marketing scheme, after it's been running for four years. At the bottom of the pyramid, your task in attracting new readers is exponentially harder than it was for those who started their sites just a few months ago. You need to expend more time reading and responding to blogs, and more time writing your blog, to gain the same share of the blogosphere's attention, and ranking, than it would have taken in 2005.

Gaining a link from an A-lister - the primary currency of blogging, called the 'scoble' in this instance - is likely to take an enormously long time. When the author started blogging in 2002, gaining a 'winer' (which was worth several scobles at the time) took only a few posts, because there were fewer bloggers and blogs. If you read people's blogs, commented and posted your own ideas on the subject, then you'd be noticed sooner or later. That isn't the case now. There are millions of blogs. Even if the A-listers show willing and try to find new voices, it's unlikely that they'll find *you*.

The author compares starting blogging now to speaking at London's Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. Marx, Lenin, Orwell and Morris spoke and gained fans there. But who have you heard of in the last fifty years that started in Speaker's Corner? Exactly.

As blog posts become commodities - inevitable since their volume and relative equality continues to increase - then the ethics and manners of blogging must erode. The early days of share and share-alike - "oh, someone linked to me or posted a comment: out of respect for that time, energy and thought, I'll link probably back and comment on their next post" - seem like the summer of '69.

Marketing your blog has become equally different with 64 RSS publishing agents, dozens of directories and blog-writing tools. Enter the world of social media tools like digg, and your list of must-do's becomes longer. Again, precious time that has to be costed, somehow.

Blogging's heyday - the day's when an individual could make an impact in short period of time - are over, so what's the point for a new blogger?

Having laid down the reasons not to enter the competition, Hansen offers three reasons why you might:

• "It's a ferocious little act of will". It's you, being yourself. You put something out there. From you. That has a value no matter what recognition it gets.
• The initial three rules of blogging - the three 'R's- wRite, Respond and Respect - still apply, the same way they did in 2002. Do this with new bloggers and they will still work.
• Build your own small blogosphere. The (capital 'b') Blogosphere is too big and noisy, but smaller communities within that can and do flourish. Christian goes on to document a complete methodology for a beginning group of bloggers, but that it is better left for readers of the full paper.

(found via. Lee Hopkins)