Matt Haughey runs the widely popular community weblog MetaFilter where anyone can contribute a link or comment to.

Tell us about yourself.
I run MetaFilter.com and PVRblog.com as my main focus, as well as my personal sites like a.wholelottanothing.org. Some strangers have written my entire life story up on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Haughey

What is your blog about?
MetaFilter is about anything and everything, covering interesting stuff found online. Other parts of MetaFilter deal with Q&A, Music, Jobs, and helping members launch their Projects.

How did you get started?
I just wanted to experiment with a new programming language (ColdFusion), so I built the site in it to extend my knowledge and abilities with it.

What is the source of your content?
I participate along with 52,000 other members in making posts and comments.

How frequently do you write / post?
On MetaFilter, I post about once every few days. I comment all the time though.

Does your blog generate revenue?
Yeah. It took about five years to become steady, but in Fall of 2005 it was enough that I could quit my day job and simply run the site.

Who visits your blog? Tell us a little bit about your readers.
About 3.2 million strangers hit *.metafilter.com last month. A little more than half had never seen the server before. Somewhere in the range of tens of thousands of people actively read it everyday.

Do you consider yourself successful in blogging? Why?
Yeah, I do, mainly because I finally got to quit my day job and freelancing and I could support my family based just on blogging. I gave a talk about how to do it (http://www.slideshare.net/mathowie/making-money-blogging/) and would like to do more with helping people live the dream. Everything I’ve found online about making money blogging sounds like snake oil salesmen trying to make a buck off readers and I think there’s a more balanced, less sensational approach to give people tools and information they can use without littering the web with more spam blogs, affiliate garbage, and other
get-rich-quick shenanigans.

Do you have another job?
Nope, just blogging!

Any advice, suggestion, tips or a message you would like to give to other bloggers?
Yeah, the formula is pretty simple. Clear your mind and think about what you’d do if you didn’t need money or careers or anything. If you were independently wealthy, what would you want to do everyday? Once you figure out what you most love to do in this world, start a blog about that. Write, design, and photograph your heart out about that thing you love most in this world. In a year or two, it’s likely you’ll become the leading expert online for whatever it is you love so much. At that point, you’ll probably have a big audience and comment community and make pretty good money off your specialized blog.

Would you like to add anything else?
Naw, thanks for talking with me though.

Tags: MetaFilter, Community Blog, Matt Haughey

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