First professional blogger calls it a day

Jason Kottke was unable to make the subscription model a sustainable one for his blog

Professional blogger Jason Kottke has abandoned his operation. 

"I haven't grown traffic enough or developed a sufficient cult of personality to make the subscription model a sustainable one for kottke.org," he wrote on his blog. 

Blog search engine Technorati ranks Kottke's blog as the 21st most popular in the world, based on other blogs linking to the site. 

Kottke quit his job as a web designer last year and became the first professional blogger running a subscription-based site. 

He claimed at the time that he was no longer able to combine his blog with his work and personal life, and wanted to start "blogging for blogging's sake".

To generate revenue, Kottke started to solicit donations from his readers to get him through the first year, but he declined to put advertisements on the site.

The blog attracted $39,900 in donations from 1,450 individuals. The blogger also claims to have received about $6,200 in free goods and services which he distributed among his patrons.

While he succeeded in attracting enough donations to get through the year, Kottke explained on his blog that he was unable to invest the time that was needed to make the site grow.

The blogger said he does not yet know what he will do with his site in the future.

• Silicon Valley Sleuth: Kottke ends pro blogging experiment