I think that if you are interested in Blogging to talk about yourself, your dog, your awesome cooking, then you are certainly not affected by all the Internet Marketing Hype trends! On the other hand, if your end goal is to make money with your blog, you probably read all those sales letters each one telling you that the previous won't work because no one uses that technique anymore.
Blogging has been around for more than 10 years and the same people still make money and new bloggers are getting there every day.
The difference between the hype and a good sane approach is quite simple...