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 at 2:24 PM | Print | Comments (4)Blogging has been slow these past few days because Mitch and I were in our respective Thanksgiving slow-down modes. But given that most of the news of the past week focused on Black Friday and its attendant windfall for consumer electronics makers, I thought I’d share my own Black Friday experience.
While visiting my family in Stuart, Florida, I did something I’ve never done before — arise before dawn to scoop up some Black Friday specials. In particular, I wanted the unbelievably low-priced HP Pavilion laptop WalMart was hawking for $389 per unit, a steal that first caught my attention via Engadget one month ago.
We arrived at WalMart shortly before the doors opened at 5 a.m., with about 100 people ahead of us in line. Upon arriving at the Electronics department at 5:03 a.m., I was informed that all the laptops had been sold, all fifteen alotted to the store that is. When I pointed out that at least twelve of these prizes were still stacked on the floor behind the counter, the salesman told me that they had “already been sold.” Why would anyone who was lucky enough to receive one of the easily carried laptops leave them behind the electronics counter?
Shame on WalMart for heavily marketing the low-priced laptops via widespread print and TV promotions only to stock this store, and I suspect all other stores, with enough of the product to last less than three minutes after opening. Shame on WalMart for making me rise at the inconceivable hour of 4 a.m. and making me step foot in a store that I rarely patronize.
I’d love to hear from any other folks about their experiences in trying to buy the HP Pavilion laptop from WalMart on Black Friday. Please drop me a line.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 1:59 PM | Print | Comments (3)
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