Is Your Blog Your Own?

Yesterday I was approached by someone who was interested in increasing their writing portfolio and offered to write posts for my blog. They would stay true to "good, useful posts/articles on education/college/online education etc." but would like to make sure they had a by-line and a link to their web page.

I found this idea interesting and intriguing, but also a little invasive. It's my blog after all. So turning to Brent Schlenker, I ask for his opinion and advice (once again). He too thought he may have been approached by the same person; or is it a coincidence we got the same email from 2 different people. Brent suggested that, "if your blog is a brand and you are serving a group of readers then it might be a good thing. In this case, any time you can add value to your brand, whether its your content or not, its a good thing."

I'm still unsure how I feel about this co-authoring. I'm not sure I'm at the point yet to open my blog in this way. I'm not sure that I my blog has a "brand", but that's a great thing to think about and strive towards.

I'm curious as to what other think about this idea. Is your blog your own? Is it only to capture your learning experiences and items you find to be interesting? Or is it something more? Was your blog once yours and now serves a much larger audience?