There have been a large number of posts on this topic in 2005, covering a wide scope. You have ProBlogger on this subject, with the comments section of that post being almost as useful as the original post itself. Darren has his own take on this, with quantity and quality being equally important (at least on ProBlogger):

This flies a little in the face of the constant catch cry I hear from many bloggers about ‘quality content being the key to successful blogging’ - I agree with this - but want to argue that it’s not just the quality that counts - ProBloggers also need to consider quantity. For me it’s not an ‘either or’ question - it’s about both.

I believe that this is definitely true across all blogs, but as a comment poster says:

However, with the increase of postings, quality must go down a little (or else you drive yourself crazy).

Define Blog has a shorter post that targets a different point of view on this: That It Depends.

No matter what anyone says there is no direct answer for this question; the truth is, it will always depend.

He brings up Engadget as an example of a blog that can get away with frequent short posts due to the lack of confirmed and detailed information that is normally associated with gadget blogs. I agree. After all, my RSS reader fills up with a hundred unread Engadget posts if I just leave it for three or four days. And I still love Engadget.

Now, I once read this in a book by James Pilditch:

…the benefits of better-quality components include less downtime, less inspecting for faults and consequently lower costs because longer runs are guaranteed.

So, how do you carry this over to blogging? We don’t have “downtime”, but we do have “inspecting for faults”. For me, writing large quantities of lower quality posts has meant more editing. This is a paradox I’m sure, since lower quality posts should entail less editing and less fuss over the posts. But it boils down to individual personalities. Do you compensate for a lower word count by making sure every word, sentence and example is perfect? If not, good for you. You’ve conquered one of the factors that prevent me from writing large quantities of lower quality posts.

On the other hand, if I write longer, more detailed, and probably higher quality posts, editing time drops. I find that I’m more easily satisfied with posts I already spend a relatively long time planning for. Yes, it is another quirk, but it does show how quality vs. quantity can end up being a screwy debate (at least for me).

So, how should we proceed? Ideally, bloggers intending to reap monetary rewards should go the way Darren suggested, at least in an overall sense for all their blogs. Blog a lot and blog with quality. Even if you have one Edgadget, you will most definitely have blogs that require you to write consistently longer and detailed posts (and most probably less frequent posts). Of course, I’m not saying that frequent short posts (like the way Engadget does it) mean lower quality, but in most cases and for most blogs, that is likely to be true. So, it is necessary to check with yourself, your audience, and your traffic levels, to see whether it should be quantity or quality for each one of your blogs. Overall, you should end up with the ideal - quality and quantity.

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