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.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[StuDude]

Remember that success is fleeting....

$400,000(this year)/40(working years) = $10000/yr, which is probably less than you make as an engineer.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[lucabrasi999]

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

I wouldn't get too depressed. Ever since I started my first high-school job (as a restaurant dishwasher over 20 years go), I have heard hundreds of stories about people that made alot of money doing stupid things. In spite of these stories, you just have to remind yourself that there are millions of people that lost their shirts, thinking that stupid things would make them rich, quick.

You are better off, in the long run, with an education. With a degree, if nothing else, you can always end up with a good job, when your latest get-rich-quick scheme fails.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[PhairOh]

I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but I wouldn't be suprised if the percent of bloggers that actually make 6 figure salaries is probably similar to the percentage of "higher educated" (read college+) people who make 7 figure+ salaries.

It's just the same as always. Some people get are lucky. Some people are extraordinary. Some people are just really good at what they do and therefore people will pay them for it.

Remember, the wealthiest man in the world dropped out of college.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[ThaFooz]

I have heard hundreds of stories about people that made alot of money doing stupid things. In spite of these stories, you just have to remind yourself that there are millions of people that lost their shirts, thinking that stupid things would make them rich, quick.

Amen to that. I'm reminded of a David Cross bit - for anybody that needs to remember that most dumb/untalented people do in fact fail, buy yourself a plane ticket to Los Angeles and just sit on a bench on Holywood Blvd. for a little while. No where else in the world can you see so many delusional people who spent everything to get there, thinking that they're going to be 'the next big thing', only to be chewed up and spit out by the city a few months later.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[halltk1983]

there are enough cars to be used as money??? I didn't think Fiat did that well...

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[SamSim]

Just like writing novels, then. Very, very few people make enough money from writing e.g. fiction to live off.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[Eric Giguere]

Most people don't realize how little authors make on their books. For a non-fiction, you're usually talking 10% of the net (wholesale) cover price. (For fiction, it's usually a smaller percentage of the cover price, which generally works out to about the same.) So for an average $40 tech book, the author might be getting 10% of $24, i.e. a couple bucks per book. If you only sell 5,000 books total (very common) then you can see that the numbers don't amount to much.

This is why more and more authors are starting to publish their books electronically as e-books, often becoming their own publishers. It's very similar to the way that musicians are exploring electronic distribution avenues for their work. But it's still an immature, emerging distribution model for both kinds of artists.

Eric
(who nevertheless has a conventional printed book to flog -- you can always hope!)

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[caseydk]

Actually, with $5M and a measely 3% annual rate of return would give you $150k/year. Everything you don't spend, let it roll over.

If you can't live on $150k/year with one kid, you have bigger problems.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[MayorDefacto]

Remember, the wealthiest man in the world dropped out of college.

Remember, the wealthiest man in the world (William Henry Gates III) had already-rich parents (his dad was a high-paid corporate attorney and his mom sat on the board of a number of corporations such as Berkshire Hathaway). He attended Seattle's most prestigious prep school, and the only reason he dropped out of Harvard was to pursue his softare business. The guy is neither stupid nor of humble roots.

So when you say some people get lucky, I read that as "some people are born lucky..."

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[(1 -sqrt(5))*(2**-1)]

I read that as "some people are born lucky..."

There's that classic line from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:

[B]ut be not afraid of greatness: some
are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon 'em.

Now, if you mean to say that Gates' fantastic genes propelled him forward, I'm with you; if, on the other hand, you're merely interested in class-based agitation, I'd urge you to rethink your position.

Re:Why TF did I go to school?

[MayorDefacto]

And why, pray, shouldn't I engage in a little good-ol' class-based agitation? Clearly, the man had plenty of advantages to start with thanks to his family's wealth (well, aside from chiseled good looks, but I digress) While I've seen many a privilleged kid fritter away all of the advantages their fortunate station in life affords them (rich kids turning into layabout stoners in college and such), I find it hard to believe that you think that being born to rich parents isn't at least in part a determinant of future success.

If mumsie and daddy can afford to send you to all the best schools and provide you with a comfortable lifestyle where your primary concerns can stretch beyond merely surviving, you have much more time to, oh, I don't know, dink around with computers. I love a good Horatio Alger, up-by-the-bootstraps story as much as the next guy, but the fact is that if you are born wealthy, you already have a head start on all the others in the race to the top.

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?

Re:Another Bubble

[H0p313ss]

Today they're a fad. 10 to 20 years from now we can look back and call it a trend.

When it started, Amazon.com was part of the WWW fad, they're just the 5% that stayed around long enough to be a trend.

Ok, got a blog...

[oZt]

...Now I just need something cynical, sarcastic and offencive to write in it..

Adsense

[TheSync]

I make enough from Google Adsense on my blogs/sites DNAhack.com and Econotarian.Org to pay for the DNS registration, and I could probably pay for nicer hosting if I wanted to as well and still come just a bit ahead in the end.

Lucky him, but...

[Spad]

an individual blogger is making over $400,000 per year from his living room

Sadly, most of that will now go towards his bandwidth costs.

Shocking!

[samael]

People write about things that interest people, and then make money off of advertising!

I'm sure this has happened before, but I can't quite place it...

Revenue Rarely Enough to Live on

[SumDog]

Somehow I doubt the figures quoted. I've been running a journal at http://sumdog.com/ since 2001 (before everyone called them blogs) and have been running google ads since January and have made $29 so far.

Ads aren't worth a whole lot. If you choose to do your own advertising and not use services like google ad words, you can probably do much better, but they're still not worth much. I suspect many of these people are selling merchandise, promoting certain businesses and have several forms of revenue.

Looking at cartoon sites, the Brothers Chap who run homestarrunner.com current make enough money off all their merchandise to fully support themselves. Hell I even own a StrongBad poster.

You can support yourself off a blog, but it's rare. It requires the type of site status as homestarrunner, the onion or maddox...or possibly Wifey's World or Heather's I Deep Throat.

Re:Revenue Rarely Enough to Live on

[DerekLyons]

Somehow I doubt the figures quoted. I've been running a journal at http://sumdog.com/ since 2001 (before everyone called them blogs) and have been running google ads since January and have made $29 so far.

Frankly I'm surprised it's made as much as $29. Your site is ugly, poorly designed, poorly laid out, and utterly without a reason to exist other than to masturbate your own ego. If I'd found it on a web search (unlikely as vanity sites rarely rank highly) I'd have thought to myself "heres another loser who has AdWords on his site because they lowered the barriers".

In short comparing your little site with even a semi-professionaly run site is about as accurate as comparing an Estes rocket with the Saturn V.

(And considering Blogger.com was founded in 1999... You have a little to learn about the history of blogging.)

Ads aren't worth a whole lot. If you choose to do your own advertising and not use services like google ad words, you can probably do much better, but they're still not worth much. I suspect many of these people are selling merchandise, promoting certain businesses and have several forms of revenue.

Ad revenue per blog is tiny - but across thousands or tens of thousands of blogs, those numbers add up significantly.

On the other hand - when you look at the two blogs featured in the Slashot summary, you find highly targeted sites aimed at a specific audience - and those can make significant money from targeted ads. (Thats why you find ads for fishing rods in Field and Stream and ads for Corning Ware in Good Housekeeping.) An extremely narrowly targeted website I built in 1997 brought about $10/mo from Amazon links until I took it down in 2004 - even though I never updated, changed, or even publicized the site after about the first month.

Looking at cartoon sites, the Brothers Chap who run homestarrunner.com current make enough money off all their merchandise to fully support themselves. Hell I even own a StrongBad poster.

You miss an important point - they couldn't support themselves, with ads or merchandise, if they didn't provide the content that drew the eyeballs. The same is true when you examine the two blogs in the Slashdot summary

You can support yourself off a blog, but it's rare. It requires the type of site status as homestarrunner, the onion or maddox...or possibly Wifey's World or Heather's I Deep Throat.

-5 Excessively Obvious.

Pretty much anyone whose been savvy about the web since, oh, 1995 or so knows this well. That's why many of us were not surprised when the Bubble burst - as we'd predicting it for years.

one grain of salt, please

[amrust]

It may just be me, but does anyone else lump these "I make huge bank with my blog" stories up there with those "get-rich quick" schemes on late-night TV, by those seedy looking guys with wet spiky hair, wearing golf shirts and khaki shorts, sitting in canvas director's chairs?

Some guy claims he makes $400k, so Hmmm.....I guess he does, case closed? /rolls eyes

Profit

[generic-man]

1. Person watches CNN
2. Person gets pissed off because he hates CNN
3. Person makes blog where you can get "the real news, not that CNN bullshit"
4. Person sells blog to parent company of CNN
5. Profit!
6. GOTO 2

Re:Profit

[pizzaman100]

Is the person's name Rupert Murdoch?

The real secret is...

[Kalgash]

From one of deeplinked FA:

And so the lesson the Manolo he takes away from this for the new bloggers is to be aware that the large part of the mission of the blogging it is to entertain, and so you must write well, in the lively manner.

The blogging bubble begins now ...

[miller60]

Anyone who has the skills to write a marketable blog will see what AOL paid Jason Calcanis, get dollar signs in their eyes, and leap into the blog network game.

Many will fail. There was already a casualty this week, as Webby Media shut down just nine days after launching. Their business plan: give away 100% of ad revenue to bloggers. Doh!

There are now blogs emerging that do nothing but cover these blog networks, like the newly-launched Blog Network Watch or Blogebrity.

Not getting it

[Jesus IS the Devil]

To those of you who think blogs are just junk, you don't know what you're talking about.

There are junk blogs (like those countless BS myspace ones) and there are awesome ones. Slashdot is a great one. Gizmodo is another. "Blog" is just a new way of creating articles, in which anyone can now do online easily.

I remember a few years back there was this newsletter that this one guy would publish once every week. It was really great because the guy would talk about new webmaster tricks submitted to him, or other ramblings about that particular niche. I would wait in anticipation for every new issue that comes out. It's not readily evident, but that was a really early version of blogging, just done in a more manual way.

Don't just quickly dismiss the whole concept of blogs.

Re:Not getting it

[drunkennewfiemidget]

You're absolutely right.

You can call this a 'stupid fad', or 'waste of time', or BS all you want, but the fact of the matter still remains that there is a need and a want for this service, because there are people making money off of it.

It's called capitalism. As long as someone can make money doing this, it's going to continue. If the blog makes money, then its getting views. If its getting views, then its inevitably got some sort of useful information to keep people coming back.

I read a list of about 10-15 blogs/comics/slashdot type sites each and every day -- I count on them as part of my morning routine when I get to the office.

Oh I Dunno...

[Greyfox]

How much did Slashdot go for?

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:Riches vs. Reality (Power Law Distirbutions)

[garcia]

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.

Personally, I shy away from any "blogger" that is doing it professionally. The power of "bloggers" stems from their brtual honesty and their lack of pays offs (in my mind at least). The second someone is paid to do their hobby a couple of negative things happen:

1. They feel inclined to report on something to benefit those that are paying them for fear of losing the stream of money.

2. They get bored w/the job because they are now getting paid for what was once their hobby that they loved.

3. They overdo it to make more revenue.

I write about stupid shit and post it to my website for myself and my friends. Other people do happen along and read it from time to time and I hope that they see it's just for my own personal enjoyment. There's nothing behind it except what I felt at the time. I have no financially motivated agendas to rate one opinion over another.

When you start doing that, your reputation suffers.

Re:Are people that dumb?

[blancolioni]

I can stay home and write stupid shit that nobody cares about, so where's my six figure salary?

I think the money comes when one writes stupid shit that people do care about.

I am not sure why this is hard to understand. Your comment could also apply to novelists, and in fact the ratio of six figure salary earners to everybody else is probably much the same in that profession.

Honestly confused:

[grasshoppa]

What is it about blogs? I can see why people write them, it's a form of therapy much in the same vein as giving confession ( for you catholic types out there ). It's a release, a way to understand the things in your life and gain some control over them.

But who reads these things? Why are they so popular? I tried reading a few, including our resident's celebrity's, and I can't see the appeal to them for the reader ( sorry Clever ). I have enough going on in my life that I don't need to read about someone else's problems. And, quite frankly, after reading a few of those blogs, you all lead boring lives ( unless you are the blogging whore, in which case...call me ).

So why do you folks read these things? And how in gods' name are they so profitable?

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.

So one guy makes money

[smooth wombat]

No, I haven't read the linked article but just by reading the posting I can see/hear it now: "Hey honey, why don't I start a blog so I too can make X thousands of dollars a year. That way I can quit my crappy job and we can live like royalty."

Just because one person claims that they are making X thousands of dollars does not mean you or I will. These claims remind me of those real estate scammercials where they insist that for only $200 (or whatever amount) you too can live the life you've already wanted by buying houses for no money down.

Sure, one or two people live in a market where they could flip a house and make some money but the vast, vast, VAST majority either barely break even or lose money on their deals.

Same with blogs.

Blogs Have Ads?

[pete-classic]

I didn't even realize that blogs have ads. Thanks Adblock!

-Peter

why so much anti-blog sentiment around here?

[Evil Grinn]

Why do so many around here act like "blogs" are some despised world totally different from the rarified circles that Slashdot users travel in? What the hell is Slashdot if not a blog shared by Taco and the other editors, that (like most blogs!) allows the general public to post comments?

The articles are dated, the newest ones appear at the top, they have permalinks, you can subscribe to it via RSS. It's a f**king blog!

If you hate Blogs the way some people seem to hate Emo*, then why are you using Slashdot?

* I don't really know what Emo is, so I neither love nor hate it.

Personal experience with AdSense revenue

[RebrandSoftware]

I run a small software company, and our main customers are webmasters who want to sell their own software. A very niche market (but a lot of fun!).

About a year ago I signed up with Google AdSense to offset advertising costs from Google AdWords and to give some value to traffic that would otherwise visit the site without purchasing anything.

The traffic isn't particularly heavy since it's such a niche market. However, I still manage to make about $60-$100 per month with Adsense.

Obviously, that's not nearly enough to live on. However, I can see how a blog has qualities that would make it very profitable.

For example, a blog has constantly changing content that grows every day. Each time there is a new entry it creates an opportunity for more links in from search engines. Those entries continue to be indexed by search engines long after they're written, so each day the blog has more and more potential.

Because blogs are always changing they have the potential for daily visits from dedicated readers, and those readers have an incentive to support the blog by visiting it's advertisers.

If a blogger were to choose subjects based on high-value keywords (which they could research by signing up for Google AdWords but not actually purchasing advertising) they could expect at least a few dollars per click.

I can definitely see the potential in blogs.

Now, please excuse me, I'm off to start my blog about high quality diamonds.

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

Relative incomes

[SeanDuggan]

Similarly, very few actors make enough money to live off. Very few professional athletes make enough money to live off. *shrug* It's the exceptions that people remember. Heck, in his book, If Chins Could Kill, Bruce Campbell admits that his average annual income from acting is less than $40,000, which many people consider to be standard wage slave income. And he's a fairly well known actor, too...

Och, and don't even get me on the subject of people who think primary school teachers are overpaid...

Zonk and blogging stories

[The Hobo]

YAZBS (Yet Another Zonk Blogging Story)

Look for the magic word in the title/summary/links:
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen

There's probably more, but there's definitely a trend: If you want a story posted on Slashdot, find (or in some cases, make up) blog-related "news" while Zonk is on duty

Re:Blog Bubble Not To Pop

[budgenator]

I don't think that everyone is delusional and thinks that just by publishing something about anything that you'll find a market and be rolling in cash somewhere down the line
I do somehow, I got the feeling that this was a MLM scheme, but I was wrong. I've been in Amway, and yes I lost some money, $100.00 to be exact, and that was completely due to my poor judgement, not Amway. So I am a bit sensitive to scheming, so what the scheme;

1. Rowse is a legit blogger who finaly manage to get his blog on /.'s front page and profits,
2. Most likely the Rowse is an astroturfer for chitika and his results are best-of-breed and not typical,
3. Rowse is an amalgam of best-of-breed and represents peak one-time earnings presented as possible from a company worried about AOL and Google aquiring their revenue stream and saw a chance to get /.ed for profit,
4. Rowse is part of a click-ring of blogers who click each other's ads in a variation of a kiting scheme and saw /.ing as a means to camofludge their activites,

Take your pick.
The financial risk of trying this is fairly low, so I guess no harm, no foul. Now there are always people who will think that money will just jump into their pockets; these people are usualy disapointed; you want to make money, you have to work or sell.