Blogging for rubles

I heard this morning on Echo of Moscow Radio - on the EchoNet program, to be exact - that Bol'shoi Gorod magazine has launched the first paid blog (i.e., the blogger gets paid by the publisher) in Russia. In fact, they are pretty much making the blog the front page of their site - here's their press-release and a post from the magazine's editor about this.

Nikolai Danilov, who blogs under the pseudonym Norvezhskii Lesnoi, is the pioneering blogger. Congratulations are certainly in order. This blog could quickly become one of my favorites for two reasons: 1) I liked the old Bol'shoi Gorod, and the new version (the print magazine was recently redesigned) looks to be better, and 2) Lesnoi intersperses his comments with photos, a blogging style that is near and dear to me.

Lesnoi titled the post about this development on his LiveJournal diary (to remain his personal blog) "I sold out" ("Prodalsya"). He later wrote an interesting post about how his commercial and personal blogs will be divided, but not competitive - no doubt an issue faced by just about any blogger who turns professional. (Sorry, English-speakers, these links are all in Russian.)

I wanted to find out who might have been the first professional blogger in the United States (this post suggests it may have been Romenesko), only to learn that Google finds a wealth of sites containing the words "first professional blogger." Aspiring professional bloggers may find this article to be of interest, as well as this site. There's also apparently an organization known as the Professional Bloggers' Association, so I guess this concept is way more widespread than I thought.

Anyway, congratulations to Danilov, a.k.a. Lesnoi, on being the first in Russia.