Most of these benefits can be achieved from being a contributor to popular forums or support sites (StackOverflow etc). I think blogs suffer way too much fragmentation, are too difficult to find and require a lot of effort just to keep people coming back. However if your contributions are in a popular, well visited place they'll get more exposure and things like karma make it easier for users to access how valuable your contributions are.
Between RSS and Twitter, people generally find their way to interesting material. You just can't expect every single thing you write to garner attention. If you're writing for your own edification as much as for others, that's not a big deal anyway.
>If you're writing for your own edification as much as for others
Agreed. I know a few people who do this but the article focused on professionals. There's little point spending time writing stuff which doesn't get attention if your sole motivation is professional advancement.
