Time to Hang Up the Pajamas

The blog is just the medium. What you do with it builds your personal brand.

As with rockstars, you practically give away the album (blog entries) and make money on tour (as a speaker or author).

Common sense dictates you aren't going to get filthy rich when you only make 10 cents per 1000 visitors.

Michael Arrington isn't doing well because TechCrunch is a successful blog. He's doing well because he used the site to build his personal brand, and his celebrity has opened doors for him in other ventures. Same with Perez Hilton. Same with the other successful bloggers.

It's possible, Dan, that you weren't successful because you weren't interesting or entertaining enough. Making a lot of money from a blog, or anything for that matter, takes talent, a lot of hard work and a special niche. Good timing doesn't hurt either. Don't "sour grapes" a whole industry just because you weren't a big hit.

With few exceptions, most ???social media??? barely rises to the level of reality TV. It???s doubtful history will record this phenomenon beyond a footnote in someone???s bio. The great democracy of the Web reflects an immense lack of talent emanating from those who???ve achieved basic keyboarding and mouse skills. Why pay them any attention, let alone a living wage? Regardless, ???social media??? is now an industry, with CEOs and excited punditry , and of course, thousands of supportive blogs, Twitter-groups and Facebook mavens.

Asking us to register before making comments is pain enough, but erasing the comment after registering is probably the reason you only have three comments.

I do believe people (audience and advertisers) will discern when the content posted is "fake" and when it's unique. You started this blog humorously and thus nobody took it seriously. For all it's worth, you had a lot of attention for a while. I've put some comments on my blog: http://cli.gs/22bjhJ

Some blogs can't be monetized, specially when your angle is humoristic. I've put together some ideas on how to monetize and make money from your blog here: http://cli.gs/22bjhJ

There are just too many blogs and too little time. Isn't there like 10,000 new blogs popping up every day! Wowza. Oh, here's mine by the way ;) -- http://buoyantaspect.blogspot.com/

My blog has about 600 visitors a day, and I make 1.5 dollars on ads. (that's the average) so using a linear calculation, 500K visitors would've made me 1,250 in a single day. Sorry buddy, you had a lot of visitors, but no one liked your blog, and the ads had nothing to do with the visitors.

Judging by reading a number of comments here, I find my own opinion validated: you got into blogging for the wrong reason: MONEY. Moreover, your attempts to create a Steve Jobs gossip-clone were insincere, manipulative, in poor taste and the slightest of blips on the blogscreen, on a par with some Hollywood starlet having a fender-bender. The old saw "Do what you love and the money will follow" certainly applies in your case. In addition, you _apparently_ didn't do all the work necessary to build your blog presence...but you didn't talk about that so I don't know for sure. But I do know it's not enough to simply write posts and hope for publicity. The world move too quickly for that old strategy. Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame is down to about 1.5 seconds. Good luck in your next venture.

Dont forget the 22 year old Bankaholic guy who sold his banking blog to Bankrate for $15M.

So if blogging has no money & traditional publications have no money, how are writers ever to make a living again? Discuss.

So, if the money isn't in blogging, staff writers are being canned by every publication, and freelancers are losing markets...where IS the money?

Interesting story. Did it not feel strange to blog as a "copy" of Steve Jobs? I think you could make money on advertising, affiliate marketing, sponsorship and in other ways. I am a "poor" capitalist at the moment, but I enjoy my blogging and it has lead to great things, in a material & spiritual way. With my experience and increased knowledge how social media is working, I could create workshops, engage in consulting projects and the spread the good word.

All the Best,

Martin Lindeskog - American in spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.
EGO blog - http://egoist.blogspot.com

Dan,
Bold story, and while I believe some of what prior comments suggest, yours is an important story to share. For one, I believe it fair to suggest that the "new media" will eventually recapitulate the old media. There will be new media powerhouses, who will enjoy huge followings, and will be therefore rewarded -- just not with AdSense dollars. Speaking opportunities, book deals, consulting opportunities, and yes, in some cases, advertising dollars. There will be consolidations and purges. But in the end, I'm afraid, there will be many more who aspire to the exposure and fame than will achieve it. Just like the old media, eh?

Agree with DaivRawks. A combination of revenue streams is always better. My blog: http://yowzas.wordpress.com/ supports my Amazon affiliate website http://yowzas.com . Even though I have years and years of experience and have mastered many web technologies, it does reset ALL the rules.

Wow, 1.5 million page views and that's all you got? All this shows is that Adsense sucks. Didn't we all know that already?

Consider myself as an example. I do an online comic, and I only get 2,000-3,000 page view per day. I make about $200 per month through ads. Just doing the simple math, if I has 40,000-60,0000 view per day I???m pretty sure I could be making some good money through ads. And that doesn???t even take into account the fact that having more page views would make me eligible for better paying ad services (like Tribal Fusion).

If you need some help putting ads on your site (for webcomics, blogs, or anything else), I???ve written a tutorial you can find here:

http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/extras/adservicereview.php

It???s a little outdated because ADSDAQ has become more strict on which sites it allows, and I???ve also found a new great service in Six Apart, but this should be a good place to get you started.

I have always thought that a blog aggregator that shared in the revenues with the bloggers would be a great Digg-killer. No competitors just yet. . .

I have to say, Daniel, by doing things the way you did, you're absolutely right ??? the path you took to pursue ???huge amounts of money??? is simply not a viable business model. Your story is a perfect case study of exactly how to not make money through blogging. Old media revenue mechanisms simply don't make it in New Media. Diligent, dedicated journalism in exchange for meda's CPM dollar or even AdSense's CPC dollar just don't cut it.
AdSense is designed to pick up on the text of your article and match your message to the market that's reading your message. So, let's just say you have an article all about "Things you dislike about Howard Stern" - Your words are all about Howard Stern, but your message and your readers, who've aligned with you over time and are more likely to share your opinion, are not interested in buying anything related to or about Howard Stern. But what will your AdSense ads be about? You guessed it - "Howard Stern"- related merchandise. And that's in the best case where there's actually a known market for a given topic.
New media is about relationships and building trust. To profit from blogging, you have to find a way to leverage the trust of your audience in some way that ends up generating revenue.
Here???s a very simple divergent path from the mainstream revenue model that would probably have exploded your blogging revenue. Join Amazon.com???s affiliate program. Find books related to your given article???s theme on Amazon.com. Interlace your blog post with affiliate adverts pointing to books that can help people learn more about the topics under discussion. Without much more work and absolutely without tainting your credibility, you have found a way for your readers to put more money in your pocket in exchange for believing in you and your message.
My ???big takeaway??? that I want your readers to attain is: when migrating existing skills to a new paradigm, fully understand that a paradigm shift resets ALL of the rules ??? not just those which are convenient. You have to rethink the entire game when you step foot into a completely different arena. Applying old rules to the new game will only break your heart when you learn that you???ve ???played a good game???, but still lost.

- Daiv Russell http://Ninja-Nerd.com

A note on Technorati???s data ??? which comes from our 2008 State of the Blogosphere study. High traffic bloggers are doing much better. Among active bloggers that we surveyed, the average income was $75,000 for those who had 100,000 or more unique visitors per month (some had more than one million visitors). The median annual income for this group is $22,000. Not only are the highest revenue bloggers investing more time in their blogs, but more money. And bloggers are seeing CPMs on par with larger publishers.

@ mjdipietro: Matt???s comments are right on. Selling advertising is an incredibly complex endeavor and you need critical mass to be part of a brand???s budget. High revenue bloggers are also the most likely to sell through a network like Technorati Media or Federated Media and to have some form of affiliate advertising. The majority of all the bloggers we surveyed have some form of advertising on their sites, and one in four use three or more forms. Self-serve platforms (disclosure: we have one) are a very easy way for bloggers down the tail to see some revenue, no matter what their traffic. Last month, more than 80 million people visited blogs. No question, this is a mass medium. That said, self-expression tops the reasons for blogging, and personal satisfaction is the #1 success metric.