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The Internet Businesses Communications The Almighty Buck

Blog Network to Sell For $20 Million Plus 229

Posted by Zonk from the that's-a-lot-of-ad-hits dept.
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."
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Blog Network to Sell For $20 Million Plus More

Blog Network to Sell For $20 Million Plus

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  • Why TF did I go to school? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Enigma_Man ( 756516 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:27AM (#13729268) Homepage
    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? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Iriel ( 810009 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:33AM (#13729316) Homepage
      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.

      • 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? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MayorDefacto ( 586113 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @01:25PM (#13732115)
          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..."

          • 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.

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

        • 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 sta

        • Relative incomes (Score:3, Interesting)

          by SeanDuggan ( 732224 )
          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...

          • Wow an actor getting paid what he's worth, seriously Cambell is a fair actor, but he gets stuck with the lamest scripts on low budget movies; I guess he most really love acting else he'd be off selling tractors or used cars or something for more money.
    • Remember that success is fleeting....

      $400,000(this year)/40(working years) = $10000/yr, which is probably less than you make as an engineer.
      • My father-in-law tells me that when I make my first million, I need to invest it all, take 10% return, and live off the $100,000/year.

        Not that I think it's going to happen quite that way, but there's no reason you need to take $400k and stuff it under the mattress, either. Nor do you need to retire on that.
        • One Million? Not even close. If your father-in-law said five million, then I would tend to agree with him, but that depends upon your personal situation. For example, I am (two days away from being) 39 years old--sh*t, I might as well just throw in the towel, 39 is ancient. I have a wife and kid. Five million wouldn't be enough for me to quit my job.
          • You couldn't afford your lifestyle on $100k/year? I know that I could live on a salary much, much lower than that simply because I already do. It's a matter of living within your means and making your money as effective as possible. Eventually you'll pay off your debts and be able to live on even less. At that point, you're just accumulating wealth.

            Suppose you were offered $5 million dollars. Unless you are currently making and spending all of a $500k+ salary, that should be plenty for you to retire on.

            Pers
            • You couldn't afford your lifestyle on $100k/year? I know that I could live on a salary much, much lower than that simply because I already do. It's a matter of living within your means and making your money as effective as possible. Eventually you'll pay off your debts and be able to live on even less.

              As your salary increases, and as the size of your family icreases, you will find that your responsibility also increases.

              My wife and I live in a very nice single-family house valued at about $350K (If I live

              • Single family house in the Inland Northwest runs around $170k. That is in Spokane. Now depending on whether you live in the rural region outside of Spokane you could find one for arounf $150k.

                I suggest you relocate and buy two economical and yet above average used cars. Invest the rest.

                http://www.tb.com/index.asp [tb.com]

                Research. More research.
                • I live in Pittsburgh, PA. For major metropolitan areas, Pittsburgh is considered to have a very low average cost for housing. But, due to various advantages that I have (such as, being lucky enough to count a land and housing developer as a relative and a friend), I decided to build a rather large house on 2 1/2 acres of land. The cost and size of the house is probably a bit more than I would normally consider given my economic situation. But, the cost was discounted and I figured a few years of "stretc

          • 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? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lucabrasi999 ( 585141 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:47AM (#13729426) Journal
      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.

      • Thanks for the brick of sanity this morning, I needed it.
      • 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
    • If you want to be really depressed, just think about how you'd be making just as much or more as a union carpenter or a plumber... and your job could never really be outsourced.
      • as a union carpenter or a plumber

        I read somewhere (I don't recall where) that head auto mechanics at car dealerships easily clear $100,000 per year.

    • 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?

      Well if you're making McDonalds manager sallary, I suggest looking for a a new job. Entry level tech workers usualy make pretty decent money for people their age.

      It doesn't bother me that a select few bloggers can make a decent living off of it, great writers are truly rare and valuble to society. Atua
    • I make a living by buying lottery tickets. My income is in the $millions by simly investing my winnings in the Powerball. I have a 3rd grade education and can't see any reason why you "educated" people seems to be busting your asses for a few tens of thusands of dollars a year. Heck, when I started, I bought my tickets from quarters I found in public phone coin-return slots. Spending thousands on an education is wasted, in my opinion.

      ***Don't read this part***

      Of course, I'm lying!

      Just because some goofball
      • Freinds of mine would fall into your low-life hitting the lottery on and off welfare a couple of arrests then bam hit the mega-millions for $241M on a $5.00 easy-pick, lump sum got them $89M after taxes which collects $6500.00 a day! I was going to flame you but shit I figure the unvarnished truth would burn you enough.

  • Another Bubble (Score:3, Interesting)

    by diogenesx ( 580716 ) <kyle.m.hallNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:27AM (#13729269)
    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 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by H0p313ss ( 811249 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:33AM (#13729317)

      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.

    • 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?

      There are plenty of good magazines out there, and there are plenty of crap. Likewise, there are plenty of good television shows, and plenty of crap. It stands to reason that there are bound to be a few sites with time ordered entries and comments about them (I refuse to use that 'b---' word), and with the low barrier to entry, there is going to be a whole lot of

    • Is this just another Internet Bubble?


      I don't think so. I talk to many companies and schools and they tell me that blogging traffic and personal blog websites are on the rise. Many get-together groups, a group of poker players or a travelling bunch of retirees, use blogs to share information. Community feedback in the form of a personal blog is on the rise too.

      • I think blogs are different in that the majority of them are not out to make money. Most of them are started by people as part of a hobby, or as a way of communication, or a journal, or whatever. Now that there's some publicity of people making big bucks off of it, sure there will be some people trying to throw something together to collect some of those dollars, but the growth of blogs has had a whole lot less to do with profit, and more with people wanting to share and express themselves. Since humans are
        • 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 pa
    • It's just a shifting of the ad revenue. As TV viewership falls, advertisers have to find a new way to reach their audience. As the younger audience is increasingly online, this is a natural move for advertising revenue. Becuase of the nature of the medium (open) the revenue will be more widely distributed, but it will still, ultimately, pool at the top.

      There will be more people making money at blogging, but there will be less making money in TV.

  • Ok, got a blog... (Score:2, Funny)

    by oZt ( 689520 )
    ...Now I just need something cynical, sarcastic and offencive to write in it..

  • Adsense (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheSync ( 5291 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:28AM (#13729276) Journal
    I make enough from Google Adsense on my blogs/sites DNAhack.com [dnahack.com] and Econotarian.Org [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.

    • Like I've said before in my AdSense blog [memwg.com], it's not that hard to make some money using AdSense and blogs, i.e. enough to pay for your Internet costs plus a small profit. Making real money takes time and effort, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

      Eric
      Read the free sample chapter from my AdSense book [memwg.com] for more
    • If you read Darren Rowse's (the $400k guy)'s blog, he's brutally honest about what he does. It's not just a "hobby", he works 8 hours a day or more, every day. And it's not just one blog, it's 10 or more. And he's been doing it for 3 years. In fact, he has written entries warning people not to quit their jobs, and not to create the illusion that "I can write a couple of entries a day and get rich! RICH!!".

      And it's true, for every guy who makes real money with his blog (or most likely blogS), there are thous
    • ...when someone would steal Slashdot's ugly design.

  • Lucky him, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spad ( 470073 ) <slashdot.spad@co@uk> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:31AM (#13729305) Homepage
    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.
  • ...apparently posts on StringBuffer.toString() [blogs.com] and XPath engine timing [blogs.com] aren't wildly popular. Odd, that...

  • Shocking! (Score:5, Funny)

    by samael ( 12612 ) <Andrew@Ducker.org.uk> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:32AM (#13729314) Homepage
    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...
    • Guy makes money by setting up a blog telling people how to make money by setting up a blog.

      Seems so circular to me.

      At what point does the last guy to set up a blog about making money by telling other people to set up blogs to make money fail?

      It's kind of like those real estate infomercials telling you how you can be a millionaire by buying his training system. If it's that easy? why aren't you doing it yourself? Why are you telling other people about it?

      Actually, I guess this guy really is doing what he's t
      • According to the guy, he has about 10 blogs, and ProBlogger (the one about making money from blogs) only gets him $5-$10 a day. The real money is in some of the others...
      • But it's amazing how people will stampede towards anyone who says they know how to make a quick buck.

        Hell, it's that or work for a living.

  • Revenue Rarely Enough to Live on (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SumDog ( 466607 ) * on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:34AM (#13729320) Homepage Journal
    Somehow I doubt the figures quoted. I've been running a journal at http://sumdog.com/ [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.

    • Somehow I doubt the figures quoted. I've been running a journal at http://sumdog.com/ [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 lose

    • Maybe it's because your blog sucks?

      The colored background makes it impossible to read your recent posts, which is just as well considering the title of the most recent one has a huge spelling error right in the first word.

  • one grain of salt, please (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amrust ( 686727 ) <marcrust@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:35AM (#13729327) Homepage
    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 (Score:4, Funny)

    by generic-man ( 33649 ) * on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:35AM (#13729329) Homepage Journal
    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

  • The real secret is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kalgash ( 158314 ) <jjmcook@gmail.com> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:36AM (#13729341) Homepage Journal
    From one of deeplinked [problogger.net] 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 ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by miller60 ( 554835 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:37AM (#13729344) Homepage
    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 [webbymedia.com]. 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 [blognetworkwatch.com] or Blogebrity [blogebrity.com].

  • Not getting it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jesus IS the Devil ( 317662 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:37AM (#13729346)
    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.
    • 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 1

  • Oh I Dunno... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:39AM (#13729358) Homepage Journal
    How much did Slashdot go for?
  • Blogs have great potential because the good ones are written by experts in their fields and the really good ones have their own contacts and generate their own stories. The blog that I contribute to (shameless plug for theWatt.com [thewatt.com]) routinely finds mistakes in news articles that the press writes, and so it's also a way of trying to keep things from going out of hand in mainstream media. A blogger's dream isn't always to get rich though, a lot of the time it's to gain some sway in the field that they blog in.

  • Riches vs. Reality (Power Law Distirbutions) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:42AM (#13729389)
    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) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:03AM (#13729523)
      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.
      • I write for a few blogs and get paid to do so, but I disagree with your assumptions.

        While blogging for me was initially a hobby, I found that spending time doing so was taking time away from other "more constructive" things I "should be doing." Previously, I may have sat and spent an hour writing a blog entry, and then I'd feel guilty about it because I didn't spend that time doing something else. Now that I'm getting money for blogging, I don't feel as thought I'm wasting my time anymore.

        I don't blog *more
    • Maybe, the question is how many bloggers are making six figures per year.

      My guess is that it's a lot more than you think, it's probably at least 5,000 - 10,000.

      It does of course depend on what you consider a blog. Is fark.com a blog? I bet drew makes 7 figures.

      The fact is, when small time operators make it big, they start shutting up about how much they make. I know a few website operators that started rolling in it.. You couldn't tell by their site.

  • Honestly confused: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:45AM (#13729407) Homepage
    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: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by William_Lee ( 834197 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:13AM (#13729609)
      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.
      • And don't forget the people who are only really blogging for their friends. Someone on LiveJournal, for instance, might have an audience of 10 people -- but that just means they have a very niche audience. Just because something is available to everyone doesn't mean it's aimed at everyone.

        Of course, that class of blog isn't making any money, either. It's the equivalent of getting together with your friends and playing basketball, rather than playing for a community league, a school, or a pro team.
    • Um, You're reading one now. You also have posted to it, and even written a couple of journal articles on it.
    • Remember, 90% of everything is crap. And 90% of what's left is aimed at a different target audience. Your challenge is to find that 1% that's both good material and on a topic you find interesting.

  • So one guy makes money (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @09:48AM (#13729429) Journal
    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.
    • I used to work for this guy, and he was enamored of this software application called "SCObiz" (Yea, that SCO). Had to go to training for it, where it took me about 10 seconds to realize that the point of this software was to make money to fund McBrides legal scam, and deliver an overpriced mediocre product that was guaranteed to alienate customers. The sales end of it was a three tier pyramid scheme. Ugh. It was ugly.

      So I ask the guy I was working for, "Why are we doing this?"

      He replies, "There's a guy in c
  • 1) Read other's blog 2) Get angry/motivated/happy/sad/interested 3) Create own Blog 4) Circulate Blog 5) Repeat
  • I'm sorry, but I just have to say:

    "Blog" is a silly word, and if you repeat "blog" that many times, it starts to sound really funny.

    In a few short lines, the word "Blog" is used 8 times.

    Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog.

    Which actually reflects the general media attitude of 2003 or so pretty well.

    </ot>

    Anyway, I was going to argue that (speaking of a blog article about blogs about blogs), blogs are just descending horribly into sarcastic navel-gazing devoid of substance. Then I thought about trad
  • It looks like it might be time to dust off the old blogspot blog again.

    The year 2000 called and they want their business plan back. A handful of people are currently making money at this. There is a market for ad-driven quality content, but if a person doesn't attack it with a solid business plan, they will fail.

  • Blogs Have Ads? (Score:3, Funny)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 ) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:26AM (#13729749) Homepage Journal
    I didn't even realize that blogs have ads. Thanks Adblock!

    -Peter

  • why so much anti-blog sentiment around here? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Evil Grinn ( 223934 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:35AM (#13729848)
    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.

    • As a subset of hacker culture, Slashdot has a large population of people who subscribe to the "popular=banal" meme. While there is quite a bit of stuff that is both popular and banal, it does not logically follow that either (a) all that is banal will be popular or that (b) all that is popular must be banal. But (b) is good material for elitism, so it's a (pun not intended) popular interpretation. Blogs are clearly popular, therefore by this reasoning they must be crap.

      There's also the fact that, with bl
  • 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 e

  • 6 Figure Salaries? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chunni Babu ( 920014 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @10:47AM (#13729961) Journal
    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 [blogherald.com]
  • Blogs are for otherwise unemployed people...it takes a LOT of reading and digging to [a] have something worth posting every day and [b] having something noone else has or can copy easily so that YOU get and keep the traffic and eventually the ad revenue....this land rush attitude in TFA just does not square with the realities. If it did, My 6 blogs would have made me a millionaire by now.
  • Jason Calacanis is the owner of Weblog Inc. The man is $25 million richer today than yesterday, so give him some credit. Weblog Inc. network has 80 blogs, and it is sold for $25 million, so one blog is worth, roughly, $300,000. I'm happy to sell my blog (http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]) for a lot less. Nevertheless, congrats to Jason, because he got into the game earlier and smarter than everybody else.
  • Accepting that he does make $400,000, what does that dollar sign in front of the number 400,000 mean? The fellow is in Australia and not the US, so he probably means Australian dollars, not American dollars. Thus, he is making less money than most people reading the initial blurb would assume. Of course, Slashdot stories so many times assume that everyone reading them lives in the States, so it's only fair that this is reversed now and then.

  • Zonk and blogging stories (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Hobo ( 783784 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:03PM (#13731061)
    YAZBS (Yet Another Zonk Blogging Story)

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

    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
  • Blogs are the same as all the other sites started years before them. The difference? Bloggers don't have the skills to set up a website themselves. They have to rely on a blog service. I consider the term blog to be a deragatory one. Also the idiot claiming 400,000 a year. That is from several sites. They guy also seems unable to realize this great chitika service is actually just shopping.com with xml showing data on products. We have been using click on product as revenue for over 5 years. Hardly a
    • Some bloggers have the skills to put up a website, but it's just more convenient to use a CMS. If you build your site by hand, you have to not only copy your page template over each time you create a new page, you have to update any navigation links you have, add the page to your "What's new" blurb, update your search index (you do have a search index, don't you?), etc.

      Or you can let your content management system -- or blogging tool if you prefer -- take care of that for you, and just focus on the writing
  • There's nothing really new here. Weblogs Inc. properties such as Engadget are modelled after WIRED magazine's Fetish page, which presents nifty gadgets every month. The key difference is that Engadget provides a steady stream of content throughout the day. The topics tend to be slightly random, so you never know quite what you're going to see next. In psychological terms, it's variable reinforcement applied to web content (with the chance to add your own comments to the hot stories) -- quite addictive stuff
  • OSDir started [osdir.com] a blog network like this today, but for tech.

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