Make sure not to get into a topic/niche that is already saturated. I agree with agilius that others are much better for your benefit and others.
The best thing to do with any website or business is not to chase the great niche. Look for something that you know a lot about and you have an extreme interest in. If you do not, people will notice the lack of passion and they will not want to visit your site. You will also get bored with it. If you love video games, do a blog about them. You will have something to write and will not have to research all the time to know what you are talking about. This is just an example, the key is to be original and be passionate and people will come and revisit often. Being a leader is always better than being a follower.
Do you think one can blog about general observations, things he'd like to change, things he finds interesting, and make good money off of that, or would that kind of a blog be too general?
Perfect answer! Be yourself, love what you do. and your blog will become popular in no time, and the money will come too Good luck!
Don't write on popular topics. Write something others don't write, and people will find you through search engines.
very interesting thought......if someone is very observant of things happening around us, and most people ignore such important things, then that observation can certainly be looked upon.....
I have already started writing blog.. on tech, space,weapons ... i have worked for design last few days. I will tell about it at dp forum soon . I hope you all will like it... But this discussion should go on.. whats your opinion. I have a blog I Digg Anything which Makes Money Online . I am getting almost all the traffic from google. for many of topic like webmoney , c- gold, auto loan blog, c- gold.com, pecunix, all about joint ventures, understanding blogging and many more . I can track those nicely with mybloglog statistics. There are lot of make money online type blog. But problem is most of them writes about PTC, PTR etc . But if you can write well and have few hundred bucks to invest first time then you can brand it...and become popular. After almost two years i am understanding (few) secret weapons of famous bloggers those no body will tell you. You have to find that. To use those secret weapons you need little money. Thats all.
Does anyone know of blogs which criticize a broad range of general things about society (politics, media, values, etc) and have a good readership?