Blog Network to Sell For $20 Million Plus

Victor Cheng writes "Blogs are big money. The Weblogs Inc Network is apparently about to be sold for over $20 million to AOL, an individual blogger is making over $400,000 per year from his living room, a blogger writing about shoes is claiming a six figure income and blog networks are starting every second day with hopes of making it big. It looks like it might be time to dust off the old blogspot blog again."

Comments

Why TF did I go to school?

[Enigma_Man]

And pay umpteen-thousand dollars for an engineering education, just so I could make less money than a manager at McDonalds :(

Anybody else depressed that people make a lot of money doing stupid things?

-Jesse

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[Iriel]

Then again, I remember reading an article in WIRED about a year ago that mentioned that the vast majority of pro-bloggers don't make enough to even live off of at low class level. I have a vague feeling that about the only people making the real money off of this aren't the actual bloggers themselves but the owners of site like (I really don't know which ones bring in the most money) LiveJournal, Gizmodo, Wonkette and such. If you ask me, I think the webmasters controlling the blogs are raking in the real cash on this gig.

I could be wrong, so please don't correct me with a torch, but from the stats I've seen, being a blogger is no replacement for your day job.

Another Bubble

[diogenesx]

Is this just another Internet Bubble? I'd have to say that I feel these services are a bit overvalued. Are blogs really a trend or just a fad?

Riches vs. Reality (Power Law Distirbutions)

[G4from128k]

I'd bet that blogger revenues follow a nasty powerlaw distribution. For every blogger making $400,000 a year, there are 10 making $40,000, for every blogger making $40,000/yr, there are 10 making only $4,000, and so on. Or, for every blogger making $400k, there are 1000 making $400/year. (I don't have hard data on this. It may not be a 10:1 ratio it could be better or it could be worse)

The point: I'd bet that that only a dozen or so bloggers make a decent income, thousands make a little money and millions make nothing from their blogs. As with any fame driven industry, if a person thinks that they can be one of the top 10 blogs in the entire world, then they should go for it. If they can't be top 10, then they should NOT quit their day job.

Re:Honestly confused:

[William_Lee]

The type of blogging you're referring to is just one of many possibilities. Those blogs are often egotistic, tired windows into an uninteresting life. The blogosphere is a big place. There are a ton of high quality blogs written by subject matter experts that are updated on a regular basis for a wide variety of topics. Some of these are both well written and often incredibly informative. I often scan a list of ones related to technology, investing/trading, books/publishing, wine, etc. The signal to noise ratio may tend toward the low side, but there are many interesting areas to explore in blogs. The idea of a blog as a personal diary of life's travails is one tiny piece of what they actually are.

6 Figure Salaries?

[Chunni Babu]

Nobody earns 6 fig salary writing blogs dude. What do you think adsense ads are enough to pull this kind of salary? I think this is a misinformation someone has spread to create a hype around blogs. BTW this is what blogsinc, the company that is being sold, paid some of the writers - http://www.blogherald.com/2005/08/26/weblogs-inc-p ay-rates-revealed-by-disgruntled-potential-recruit