Written on February 22nd, 2005 at 11:02 am by David Shawver
Work Boxers is Launched
Big Money Tips has changed domain. All the goodness is now over at WorkBoxers! Huh? I’ll let Paul explain the name:
‘Well I wanted something that symbolizes a goal that many people strive for when reading the content on this site. I wanted to stay away from ‘money’ and ‘cash’ and I just pictured myself working at home in my boxers. So WorkBoxers came to mind.’
It works for me. I’m adding it to my RSS reader because Paul has a wealth of experience to share and produces beautifully designed blogs. I’m hoping he’ll post a little more regularly on the new domain though.
His first post is well worth checking out - it is titled ‘Making a Living of Adsense‘. The article starts with two myths:
‘Domain Names matter. Maybe back in the days, but domain names really have no bearing on how successful your site does. Assuming you are not using a domain name that Google doesn’t like, which is the case with my poker blog BetFest (soon to change).
This is the easy money. Wrong. And it won’t come fast either.’
Paul then goes on to ask if you should write for Advertisers or Readers (an excellent question), discusses getting started and then looks at ‘exit clicks’. I’m looking forward to the next installment of his series of posts.
Written on February 22nd, 2005 at 10:02 am by David Shawver
Interview with Jon Gale of Mobile Tracker
I’ve had a lot of good feedback on the interviews with Professional Bloggers that I’ve been running lately so I’ll keep the ball going with this week’s one - this time I’m featuring a blogger I’ve admired a lot recently Jon Gales. Jon is one of the youngest Pro Bloggers that I’ve come across (only 20) but runs one of the best examples of a professional blog that I’ve seen - Mobile Tracker (a blog on all things Mobile Phone). Jon was featured last year in an article at Fortune which revealed that back then he was already earning more than $5,000 per month from Adsense. Looking at his traffic levels since that time you can expect that this is a figure that has continued to rise.
Here is what Jon had to say.
enternetusers - Jon, thanks for chatting with us, can you briefly tell us a little about yourself? Give us a quick sketch of your life.
Jon - I’m young (I’ll be 20 in a few days), on a break from college, and having a blast publishing online. There’s something about writing for an audience that excites me.
enternetusers - How and when did you first discover and enter into blogging? Do you have or have you had involvement in other blogs or websites other than Mobile Tracker?
Jon - Back in the days where the cool kids were using Blogger (I just checked my Blogger account and I’ve been a member since June 2001). For a while I ran a weblog on software I wrote and it was hosted on my home computer. Those were the days. In fact, MobileTracker was hosted on the same server for a few weeks before I realized it might actually be popular.
I’ve had involvement in a number of websites, namely MacMerc.com. I don’t do as much at MacMerc as I did in the past, but I still step in
for larger events (MacWorld keynotes for instance). The most popular thing I wrote there was that you could tip Pepsi bottles and see if they were winners in the iTunes contest. It blew up and was featured everywhere from Reuters to CNN.
enternetusers - How and when did you start Mobile Tracker? Did you start it for commercial reasons or because of your interest in Mobile phones
Jon - As I mentioned before, it was on my home computer! I used MovableType after I moved it to a real host. I liked mobile phones, but I thought I could make a few bucks from Amazon Associates. This was back in the start of 2003 (the first MovableType post is in Feb 2003), about 2 years ago.
enternetusers - What do you see as the potential for blogging? Why do you personally do it? What advantages and disadvantages do you see in it in comparison to other formats of websites.
Jon - Having an influential site on a topic you enjoy is extremely fulfilling. Not only do you get to communicate with other experts in your field, but you start to learn a lot more. There’s a fine line between a “blog” and another type of site, so it’s hard to say what the differences would be. I just update a lot and use a tool that helps me out!
enternetusers - What is the main method of monetisation at Mobile Tracker? I see you use Adsense what do you like and dislike about it as a tool?
Jon - AdSense is currently the top money maker, but I have someone selling standard ads for me now as well. Hopefully they will both be about even in the near future. I don’t have any big complaints with AdSense, but I want to see my eggs in a few baskets. Minor annoyances with AdSense: takes a while to get the money and no direct deposit.
enternetusers - What has been the best thing about your blogging experience? What has been the hardest or worse thing
Jon - I get mobile phones for review! Every time I get one I forget about the late nights and just geek out. I love it!
The hardest times are when news is just plain slow. Traffic usually follows.
enternetusers - What advice would you give someone just starting out with blogging that would like to earn an income from it?
Jon - Don’t quit your day job. It will take a while (if ever) before you can make your income from a website. Every time I walk by the park I see people playing basketball, but there are only a few people that make their profession basketball (though a lot that want to). It’s not
impossible, nor as exclusive as the NBA, but it’s not a cake walk.
enternetusers - What is your favourite blogging tool or service?
Jon - Currently it’s MovableType, but I’m a PHP hacker at heart so I like me some WordPress!
enternetusers - How much time do you spend each day blogging?
Jon - It really depends. Some days when news is slow I search for a long time and still come up empty. So can you count 2 hours and no posts? Other days it’s fast an furious and I’ll look at the clock and I missed a meal. Last night I went to bed past 4AM.
Besides the writing I try and confirm facts, research rumors, get new phones for review and a bunch of other stuff.
enternetusers - What are your favourite 5 blogs (daily reads)?
Jon - Since a lot of the same blogs always end up in this list, I’m going to list my favorites that not everyone knows about. I subscribe to about 50 sites in Bloglines.
• http://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/
• http://www.thesuperficial.com/
• http://www.business-opportunities.biz/
• http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/
• http://www.battellemedia.com/
That’s a good non-related mix. Most of my subscriptions have something to do with news or phones.
enternetusers - Who do you see as the Customer of Mobile Tracker? Is it your reader, advertisers, search engines, sites you link to?
Jon - I don’t really see a customer. I see two sets of readers, the repeat readers and the searchers. Both are looking for different things, and I hope they find them. Advertisers are there because of the readers, so readers are the top priority.
enternetusers - What are your hopes and dreams for your blogging? Where would you like to see it take you?
Jon - I want to hire someone in the near future for the news so I can focus on reviews. From there we’ll see :).
enternetusers - What do you think will be the main changes/advances/challenges to blogging in the next 18 months.
Jon - Competitors. Engadget rose pretty quickly and that will happen again. We’ll also see some more sites sell to media companies. I hope to secure some large advertisers and take the site to a whole new level in terms of content and traffic. It’s going to be fun!
Written on February 22nd, 2005 at 01:02 am by David Shawver
Team Blogging the Only Profitable Way? Part II
Pete continues the discussion going over at pc4media on The Lone Blogger vs The Group, responding to my post and some comments left on it by lone bloggers who are making a living from blogging. He writes:
‘The key to building a business is building “processes” that are valuable, not “products” that are valuable. And if you are blogging and selling ads and you don’t have anyone helping you with anything, you have no processes. All you have is a product: your writing and your ability to sell. Jason Calacanis is building a business. Darren Rowse is making a living.
I certainly wasn’t implying in my earlier post that this was not possible. But, it certainly is not scalable. And although, you could make a living being a blogger, you certainly aren’t building a business if you are a lone operator. ‘
Again I partly agree with Pete but mainly disagree. Maybe its about definitions but in my mind what I’ve built or made so far is a business that makes me a living. I actually don’t see much distinction between my approach and Weblogs Inc except for the scale of our operations. Whilst Weblogs Inc has 70 blogs I have 17. Whilst they have many bloggers, I have 1. Whilst they split their profits between many, I take 100% of the takings. Whilst they have people negotiating advertising deals, I do that work myself (I should be able to make an announcement on a significant new one tomorrow).
Yes Weblogs Inc is building “processes” that are valuable but I would argue that what I’ve developed are processes also - they are just smaller and perhaps simpler ones. I have processes for finding content, for designing my blogs, for deciding upon topics for new blogs, for promoting them, for generating income streams. I’m not sure why having someone else helping me would suddenly make them processes instead of products.
For me ‘making a living’ means something along the lines of earning a stable income to ‘get you by’. Without going into details of figures, my income is anything but stable. Their are rises and falls (actually I’ve only had one month where the earnings have dropped in 18) that are dependent upon a number of factors, but they are dynamic and on the increase. I’ll earn more this year than I ever have before and cannot see any reason why the following year it won’t double.
The only point I’ll really agree with for Pete is that a group approach increases the scale of the operations. If there were 10 of me blogging together we could build something significantly bigger and significantly faster than I currently have. It would make my business a bigger business and possibly increase the living I make off of it. Of course with such an approach comes a variety of expenses, risks and logistical hurdles that to this point I’ve not been willing to move into (although as I’ve said before its something I’m hoping to explore this year). As Michael says in the comments of my previous post - to add more people into my operation would probably diminish the rate of return on what I do. It would probably increase overall earnings, but its something worth taking some time to weigh up before rushing into it.
Update - Pete has responded to this post here and rather than this to and fro-ing of posting I’ve left my response in his comments to keep the thread in the one spot.
Written on February 20th, 2005 at 11:02 pm by David Shawver
Team Blogging the Only Profitable Way?
pc4media is making some sense writing on Access to Inventory. Ad sales is Most Profitable when More Inventory is Accessible
‘No matter how good your writing is, if you don’t have a full time sales guy selling ad inventory, you aren’t making a living. And therefore, the more writers you have - the more inventory you have - the easier it is to sell the inventory. The more inventory you have - the more money you make - the more sales people you can hire. And the cycle continues. Pretty simple formula.
So, if you are blogging for profit and you aren’t playing on a team or teams or atleast have a sales team working for you, you won’t be blogging for profit very long.’
I see the sense behind such a statement but don’t completely agree. I’m a one man band, I don’t have anyone selling ads for me (except for me) and I am making a good living from my blogging.
Yes I could do better if I had a full time ad selling person and more people writing with me, however at this point that isn’t possible. I am hoping to expand things a little in the next 12 months but at this point am finding things are working out pretty well. I guess its each to their own and a medium where there is no one way to be successful.
Written on February 20th, 2005 at 11:02 pm by David Shawver
Blog Advertising Articles Blog Advertising: Right for You?
I’m sorry for my absence this past few days, I’ve been speaking at a conference and also trying to keep up with posting on a couple of trade shows in the US that are related to a couple of my blogs. Things should return to normal here in the next day or two.
In the mean time - here are a few articles that I just noticed on Blog advertising.
- fulminator has a two part article on ‘The Blog as an Advertising Medium - Part 1 and Part 2
- Clickz has a feature titled - Blog Advertising: Right for You?
Written on February 20th, 2005 at 11:02 pm by David Shawver
Meet the Trotts
There is a good article over at Yahoo news on Mena and Ben Trott from Six Apart:
‘Like so many other 20-somethings hoping to mine the Internet gold rush of the late 1990s, Mena Trott was thrown for a humbling loop by the dot-com bust, yet still craved stardom. Her unassuming husband, Ben, just wanted another computer programming gig in Silicon Valley’s depressed job market. The couple’s odd chemistry cooked up Six Apart Ltd., a startup that has helped popularize the “blogging” craze, with millions of people worldwide maintaining online personal journals that dissect everything from politics to poultry….
The revenue stream, which the Trotts declined to disclose, has enabled the privately held Six Apart to expand from just six employees in early 2004 to more than 70 with the LiveJournal acquisition, making the Trotts darlings of the blogosphere.’
Read more at Yahoo! News - Couple Build Startup Into Blog Powerhouse
Written on February 19th, 2005 at 01:02 pm by David Shawver
My new Blog HQ
I’ve been thinking recently about actually finding an office to blog out of and when I saw this wonderful photo at Brand Autopsy it was like a dream come true and I knew immediately that this is what I should be looking for in my new Blog HQ!
Photo originally from Everything And/But Nothing: The Blogger’s Grotto
Written on February 19th, 2005 at 01:02 pm by David Shawver
Will Blog for ‘Boys Toys’
Duncan at the Blog Herald is willing to Advertise you for 12 months in exchange for a Mac Mini.
Hmmmm - nice idea.
I’m willing to prominently advertise* you in exchange for any (or all!) of the following:
- G5 iMac
- Canon 20D DSLR
- Panasonic Video Camera
*By ‘advertise’ I mean I am willing to negotiate a nice package worth more than the retail value of whichever item you choose. This advertising could appear on this blog and/or any of the others in my stable of blogs and could include a combination of banner, button, text and sponsored posts. Of course if you’d just like to buy me any of them because you think I’m a nice guy I’m willing to accept them also!
Written on February 19th, 2005 at 01:02 pm by David Shawver
Dreaming of a ‘Blog Market’
Paul is looking for bloggers that are looking for work. He’s hoping to build a stable of writers that he can match with potential clients, publishers and companies looking for bloggers. Nice idea really.
I was actually dreaming (day dreaming) last night and wondering if a time is coming where there is some kind of ‘Blog Market’ - where those looking for bloggers to write for them and bloggers looking for work come together in a virtual sense to bid and pitch for work. I envisage a wall street stock market floor where there are people with content to be written and blogs to be maintained who are vying for the attention of the best bloggers in their industry (and visa versa). Similar in a way to this one for programmers or this one for web designers or this one for freelancers.
I suspect that at this point there is probably an oversupply of bloggers for the amount of work that people are willing to hire for, but I’m hoping for a day where the demand and supply for bloggers in this kind of work evens out a little.
Written on February 18th, 2005 at 07:02 pm by David Shawver
Blogging Creates ‘Experts’
I was speaking at a conference earlier today and was introduced by the host as:
‘Darren is one of the most famous bloggers on the internet and an expert in his field…’
As I listened to this introduction (and wondered how I’d be able to live up to it) two things struck me:
- How little the guy doing the introductions knew about the blogosphere and my little bit of it.
- How writing a blog on a topic has the potential to give you real credibility and legitimacy in a field.
Two years ago I was just an ordinary guy who liked to research and think about his personal hobbies. Today I’m still an ordinary guy who likes to research and think on the same topics, however I do it out loud and in a public way - and suddenly people call me things like ‘expert’ and ‘famous’. What’s more they ask me to come and talk to and teach them about the things I write about.
This both scares and excites me.
It scares me because I AM just an ordinary guy thinking out loud and to be reminded that people actually read what one writes and take it on board as ‘expertise’ can be a be freaky thought - with such a privilege comes responsibility. It also scares me because if I can become an ‘expert’ (I laugh every time I write that) how many other ordinary people out there with too much time on their hands are ‘experts’ in things they don’t really have expertise in also? I’m not sure I’ll ever read anything on the internet quite the same again.
It excites me because it illustrates the power of blogging. I believe that the humble blog is a medium with incredible potential and know that in the right hands it can actually be used in some powerful ways. It also excites me because blogging is a medium that is not just for ‘experts’ - in fact in some strange way blogging is a rich learning experience that may actually help create true experts in different fields.
You see whilst I fall into uncontrollable fits of laughter when I hear myself referred to as an ‘expert’ I actually have to admit that whilst perhaps that term may be a little strong that I AM actually learning and gathering knowledge and experience in the fields I write about.
Blogging is partially responsible for this. Before when I researched I did so in a way which was quite random and scattered - today when I research and then blog on my findings I am forced to be a little more structured and set out in order to communicate what I find in a way that makes sense to my reader. Blogging puts legs to my previously scattered thoughts and in the process I actually grow in my knowledge and dare I say it ‘expertise’ of the fields that I write about.
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