One of the challenges I have getting non-bloggers to understand the value of blogging is that all they ever hear about blogging in the mainstream media is either about "professional" bloggers, who use blogs as a substitute for old-style columns, or about the attention-seeking sensationalist who uses blogs to get their radical message out for next to free.

Very rarely, if at all, are the values of blogs for the selfish (used in a non-pejorative way here) benefits that you describe here mentioned in the same sentence as "blogger."