I write for 2 blog networks, Know More Media (Webmetricsguru.com is part of Know More Media) and Syntagma (ArtNewYorkCity.com) - but it's never been clear to me how profitable Blog Networks actually are. I suppose you can even think of Gawker Media as a Blog Network.
Now Andy Beal says that Blog Networks are Bringing Home the Bacon:
"...The San Francisco Chronicle has an inspiring article on the growth of professional blogs and blog networks–inspiring that is, if you want to make money from blogging."
SFGate.com writes about Yes, some blogs are profitable - very profitable
"...More quickly than most anyone imagined, blogging is growing up. From the blogosphere's anarchistic roots, a professional cadre is emerging that is creating an industry whose top-performing businesses now earn serious money. The industry is expanding at warp speed. Blog-based media could just be poised to elbow aside traditional print and broadcast outlets to become one of the dominant sources of news, information and opinion, many observers believe. "
Listen to this:
"...What's got entrepreneurs excited, especially those who went through the dot-com debacle, is that an increasing number of blogs are bringing in cash faster than they're spending it after only a few years of existence. That's in sharp contrast with the dot-coms of several years ago, many of which lived off the proceeds of stock offerings and never succeeded in generating significant sales."
"..
"When we started selling advertising in this space late in 2005, it was very experimental and risky. We were able to get maybe $4 or $5" per 1,000 page views, Battelle said. "For the same impressions we were selling then, we are now on average $20 to $30."
"..On the other side of the coin, blogging businesses can make money because their overhead is low. "It's dirt cheap to operate, which makes break-even incredibly achievable," Callaghan said."
Perhaps the reason why blog networks can be so profitable is the only expense, really, is bloggers, who often write for next to nothing - and create content which ads are run against.
So, this profitability depends on
1) Users being so stupid they don't know that ad-blocking software exists, or don't realise how much safer and faster it makes browsing? (We'll take the "more pleasant" as read...)
2) Madison Avenue is so stupid it doesn't know that ad-blocking software exists.
Either of these can change at the drop of a hat. So how is this more sustainable than what was being promised in 1999?
Posted by: Ian Kemmish | October 23, 2007 10:28 AM | Permalink to Comment