And to be clear: Mary Jo is not publishing exclusively on ZDNet. She’s blogging exclusively on ZDNet. You’ll see articles from her in print and online in other places.

(And about that bitter, rejected writer thing: drop me a note. We’ll have coffee. We’ll talk.)

The problem with publishing exclusively at a third party site is what happens when/if Ms. Foley wants to branch out on her own? Where has all the traffic been going? The SE traffic too, not just the RSS subscribers? These aren’t trivial concerns as she will find out when/if she ever goes completely independent. It’s not going to be at Ms. Foley’s domain, that’s for certain, it’s going to ZDnet blogs. Even if she has an agreement — which I doubt she does — that says her created content can go with her, she’s building the ZDnet brand and to a lesser extent her own isn’t being developed anywhere.

There have been some cases where people blogging have successfully switched from one domain/brand to another like Robert Scoble, although not even he went to his own domain, he still uses a third party site (wordpress.com).

It’s good to know Ms. Foley has an independent deal, but for her sake I hope it says something about being able to crosspost or take that content with her should something not work out at ZDnet someday. Again, I hope this isn’t taken as a blast against ZDnet or the rambling of a bitter, rejected writer, because that’s not at all what this is about. I like several of the ZDnet blogs and would have liked to have worked with them too, heck, I still might be interested in blogging for them someday if they change their minds. At the same time, I think Ms. Foley would be wise not to have made an exclusive deal with any third party as far as blogging goes over the long term.

Time will tell.