You won't see it on Monster.com (the site that gives you hope you may actually be able to use the internet to find a job and then crushes your spirits with each passing day) but blogging IS a profession. You just need: 1. a blog, they're cheap. 2. an audience (ca. 20,000 unique visitors/day would be nice, more is better); 3. For mostly text, a 60 Gb bandwidth/month allowance (that could be costly but, if you're popular, you can get free hosting); and 4. advertisers.
If you're curious, go to blogads.com and see how much some of the high traffic sites (not porn, not casinos, etc.) are charging for their "above-the-fold" ads. For example, Daily Kos, a liberal politics site charges about $9,200/week for their top spots and the site that I believe is as useful as Monster (I'm just jealous), Instapundit, gets $3,375/week for the topspot ads.
Per week.
Don't even bother with Drudge (technically not a blogger but he's close enough). His 12,000,000+ visitors a day would cripple an advertiser for his blinking, popping-up-and-under-ad circus. And for what - disclosing Monica and the whereabouts of the Monkey Man in India?
There are a ton of sites like these. Gaining this popularity isn't as unlikely as becoming an NBA star. You just need to find a niche and maintain an audience.
The phenomena fascinates me. But, the real issue: when these individuals started out, they wanted a voice. Now they want money. This can't help but effect their content. They'll stop swearing to keep their traffic numbers up, they'll swear more, they'll post more frequently whether they have something to say or not, etc. Blogs could become vanilla - or worse - blogging could turn into a JOB.
And blogs might just die (and the journalists do a wave).
No comments:
Post a Comment