IP Democracy: Is There Money in Blogging?

According to this New York Times piece, there’s money to be made in blogging. But I agree with Canadian journalist Mark Evans, whose own blog is a relative biggie in the blogosphere, in saying, oh really?

Sure, there are individual bloggers making a good living from advertising but those are few and far between. But for most people, the only revenue flowing their way is an occasional AdSense cheque from Google. I think most of the serious money - if you can call $50 million to $100 million “serious” given it’s a drop in the advertising bucket - is being snapped up by blogging firms such as Weblogs Inc. that can offer advertisers an easy way to reach a large number of different consumers. This approach is opposed to the individual blogger who, if they have enough traffic and an advertising-friendly site, can be tossed a bone across the transom once in awhile.

The truth is that aside from some boldface bloggers, the chances are slim to none that a blog can cover its costs via AdSense or any of the other ad syndication tools out there, which is a shame given that folks like Mark Evans, and even our own site IP&Democracy, are well-read by the right people. That’s why I hope ventures such as John Battelle’s Federated Media initiative find the right model so that well-informed, expert bloggers can keep up the dialog and interesting commentary.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 27, 2005 2:24 PM to IP Democracy