Celebrity blogger says he'll quit, questions marketing value of blogs

The famous "Joel on Software" blog is coming to an end March 17, author Joel Spolsky announced in his Inc. magazine column.

Spolsky, a former manager on Microsoft's Excel team, used the blog to promote his New York-based company, Fog Creek Software, and created a resource for programmers that drew more than a million visits a month.

Blogging was great for Fog Creek, in the early days. But Spolsky now questions whether it's the best use of time for entrepreneurs and companies.

Spolsky's candid analysis could be a revelation — or a relief — to companies that feel left behind or frantic to catch up to the latest social-media tools. It also may help some calibrate their mix of offline vs. online marketing, if the poster child for promotional blogging now says he overemphasized the online medium.

Spolsky said his success with the medium was unique and, in retrospect, he was putting a lot of effort into reaching a relatively narrow audience. He advised entrepreneurs to consider blogging less about themselves and their products and more about topics that will interest a wider audience and perhaps turn some into customers.

A few excerpts:

"Well, it worked brilliantly for me, but the more I've looked around, the more I've noticed that plenty of startups have managed to get customers and grow nicely without devoting a huge chunk of their early years to building a cool blog.

"What's more, I have trouble pointing to other successful entrepreneurs who have used the same formula and reaped the same dividends I have.

"The big-hit technology companies from the past 10 years tend to have pathetic blogs. Twitter's blog, like Facebook's and Google's, is full of utterly boring news releases rewritten to sound a little bit less stuffy. Apple's employees produce virtually no blogs, even though the company has introduced several game-changing new products in the past decade. Meanwhile, hundreds of Microsoft's employees have amazing blogs, but these have done nothing to stave off that company's slide into stodginess."

On the limited reach, he said:

"The best evidence also suggests that there are many other effective ways to market Fog Creek's products — and that our historical overreliance on blogging as a marketing channel has meant that we've ignored them. I realize now that blogging made me, and Fog Creek, a big fish in a very small pond. ... "

Don't get him started on Twitter:

"Awful, evil, must die, CB radio, sorry with only 140 chars I can't tell you why."

Command presence

Redmond's Gas Powered Games has launched "Supreme Commander 2," a new version of its hit real-time strategy game for the PC.

Players command and customize massive land, sea and air battles with hundreds of individual units, plus 27 "experimental" battle machines.

Gas Powered is also releasing a version for the Xbox 360 on March 16, the first time the company has developed a console version of the game in-house.

Real-time strategy games are a niche market, but they've been a profitable one for Gas Powered, especially as other game companies have shifted their focus to broader markets.

"A lot of people have walked away from this market and we see it being wide open now," said founder Chris Taylor.

The "Supreme Commander" franchise has sold 1.5 million copies, including around 800,000 when the last version was released in 2007. Taylor's hoping "Supreme Commander 2" will sell at least a million copies.

Gas Powered recently employed around 55 people, but Taylor expects to let 10 to 12 go after the game is released, as work slows between releases.

"It's nothing like Hollywood but there are some similarities — you build a production team, you make a movie and then you disband," he said.

Fortunately Gas Powered already has another huge project in the works. Taylor revealed last month that the company uses its RTS technology to build a new franchise called "Kings and Castles," with kings vying for control of a medieval fantasy world.

Meanwhile, Japanese publisher Square Enix is releasing "Supreme Commander 2," which retails for $49.99 and is rated E10 for players 10 or older.

Brier Dudley's blog excerpts appear Thursdays. Reach him at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.