Fredrik from CorporateBloggingBlog has an interesting post on making money directly from blogging and writes:
‘I’m not sure why so many people are looking for direct revenue streams from blogging. Or, well, I understand why. We all have to pay the mortgages. But I don’t think that blogging as such ever will be more than a small niche business.’ Read more at : Blogs Are Business Support Tools, Not Direct Money Makers
I have to agree with Fredrik - but also disagree. I think the majority of money to be made from blogging probably comes from other activities on the edge of blogging and not directly from the activity of posting articles. For instances blogging tools, support services (like providing advertisers for bloggers) and blog consulting are obvious examples of how people can make money indirectly from blogging - however I think its been proven that it is possible to not only make a few dollars directly from blogging - but to make a decent income from it. I know of a growing number of full time bloggers who sustain their total income from their blogging (most of whom are not willing to go public about it for fear of being copied). Of course this is a small number of people and is an activity that will become more difficult as more and more bloggers give it a go and compete - but I really believe that the market is big enough to sustain a good deal of bloggers taking this approach.
I’ve been hearing this same tune recently from multiple sources, and it just reminds me of hearing the same thing a few years ago about web sites in general, and hearing it about writing books. I’ve made [income] with both, and I’m already making [dollars] with weblogs too.
The nugget of truth in all of this is that a weblog intended as an indirect resource and a weblog intended to make [dollars] don’t look the same at all, and they don’t take the same amount of work. You have to choose which you’re doing.
[Note: I was unable to use the word “m o n e y” because your spam filter said it contained the questionable content “m o n “. That seems a bit broken.]
[Wow, apparently I’m not allowed to use “w w w” in my U R L either. Or the word U R L. Or my last name. I suspect you’re missing lots of comments.]
I agree with Michael’s statement too. Commenting here is so protected that in order to respond you have to use words like those banned in your comment spam blacklist. It makes it difficult two articles I have not commented on because of that. Also your email has a superpowerful blacklist too. 2 bounced with similar contexts.
apologies guys - I’ve removed the ‘mon’ block - I’m not sure how that one slipped by me. The ‘w w w’ addition was a last ditched attempt to kill comment spam which was crippling me.
I was getting up to 1500 spam comments every day and it depressed me terribly. I was spending up to two hours a day deleting spam and if I went away for a few days coming home was not a pleasant thing.
I’m hoping to move this blog over to Word Press in the next week and will as a result have a better spam filter system going.
Apologies for the inconvenience again - I too am frustrated by this and am working on the issue. Thanks for your patience.
No problem! I’ve been there. If you continue to have comment spam trouble after switching to Wordpress, feel free to contact me–I’ve had quite a bit of experience dealing with insane levels of comment spam and know a few good tricks.
I have been working on Typekey for Wordpress but I can’t use it because I make money on my blogs. I am thinking about inventing a service where when someone posts any comment that it reverse pings a list of approved servers and in order to be able to post a comment you have to be listed in those servers. If you aren’t too bad. So sad. Because most of these comment spammers are using Annon. IP’s and proxies.
Any other ideas. I have been succesful so far. But I moderate all my comments.
8 Responses to “Blogs Are Business Support Tools, Not Direct Money Makers”
David Krug
November 30th, 2004 5:12 am
Agreed. It is definetly a possibly to make a decent income off of blogging. It just takes time and patience and it all pays off.
Michael M0ncur
November 30th, 2004 8:22 am
I’ve been hearing this same tune recently from multiple sources, and it just reminds me of hearing the same thing a few years ago about web sites in general, and hearing it about writing books. I’ve made [income] with both, and I’m already making [dollars] with weblogs too.
The nugget of truth in all of this is that a weblog intended as an indirect resource and a weblog intended to make [dollars] don’t look the same at all, and they don’t take the same amount of work. You have to choose which you’re doing.
[Note: I was unable to use the word “m o n e y” because your spam filter said it contained the questionable content “m o n “. That seems a bit broken.]
[Wow, apparently I’m not allowed to use “w w w” in my U R L either. Or the word U R L. Or my last name. I suspect you’re missing lots of comments.]
David Krug
November 30th, 2004 8:39 am
I agree with Michael’s statement too. Commenting here is so protected that in order to respond you have to use words like those banned in your comment spam blacklist. It makes it difficult two articles I have not commented on because of that. Also your email has a superpowerful blacklist too. 2 bounced with similar contexts.
Darren
November 30th, 2004 8:46 am
apologies guys - I’ve removed the ‘mon’ block - I’m not sure how that one slipped by me. The ‘w w w’ addition was a last ditched attempt to kill comment spam which was crippling me.
I was getting up to 1500 spam comments every day and it depressed me terribly. I was spending up to two hours a day deleting spam and if I went away for a few days coming home was not a pleasant thing.
I’m hoping to move this blog over to Word Press in the next week and will as a result have a better spam filter system going.
Apologies for the inconvenience again - I too am frustrated by this and am working on the issue. Thanks for your patience.
Michael M0ncur
November 30th, 2004 9:04 am
No problem! I’ve been there. If you continue to have comment spam trouble after switching to Wordpress, feel free to contact me–I’ve had quite a bit of experience dealing with insane levels of comment spam and know a few good tricks.
Michael M0ncur
November 30th, 2004 9:23 am
I posted a lengthy diatribe on this topic here:
http://figby.com/archives/2004/11/29/more-skepticism-on-blogging-for-dollars/
I basically agree/disagree like you said.
David Krug
November 30th, 2004 10:02 am
I have been working on Typekey for Wordpress but I can’t use it because I make money on my blogs. I am thinking about inventing a service where when someone posts any comment that it reverse pings a list of approved servers and in order to be able to post a comment you have to be listed in those servers. If you aren’t too bad. So sad. Because most of these comment spammers are using Annon. IP’s and proxies.
Any other ideas. I have been succesful so far. But I moderate all my comments.
Any suggestions on these ideas?
Maxell
April 3rd, 2006 10:38 pm
Hello! Cool blog, interesting information! Great work, very useful. Thanks you!
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