My latest from Newsweek is here. Money quote: “While blogs can do many wonderful things, generating huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.”
High-Tech Fairy Tale #241 — You Can Make Millions by Blogging
Posted by Dan Lyons on Feb 9, 2009 in Tech | 45 comments
What a delusion you are, article after article
It might be more lucrative to operate a dating site. I’ve read that the founder of the website “Plenty of Fish” grosses in the $ high-six-figures, with a total staff of just 3 or 4.
The service is free to the would-be daters.
Could he he be raking in that much from advertising ?!
@Camillo, what a waste of a human life you are, comment after comment. Dan Lyons has a interesting and useful career, and you have nothing but misery, which you feel bound to share. Little do you realize you’re only succeeding in sounding like yet another 13yo brat relishing in the anonymity of the internet.
That’s horrible news. Do you also tell kids there’s no Santa? I guess I’ll have to get out of my pajamas and go to work… thanx a lot.
Noone wants to pay millions of dollars to hear what Dan Lyons blogs about. Shocking.
You gotta do what you gotta do. People will always work to pay the bills and find a way to slip in the things they love. Do miss the regular posting that comes with a blog, though. Twitter?
MobBarley?
Hey Dan, there is no question that Google AdSense is not so good for Bloggers, but is good for Google. You make $100, they make $100 x a ton of sites! Check out Federated or a different ad network to get your CPM price up, you have a highly targeted audience that should command a high rate. Or maybe Psystar will sponsor you? The Fake Steve brought to you by the Fake Mac. lol. Peace out. Peter
Money question to all of you out there: Does Steve, Bill, Warren and other pillars of our society have blogs?
Thought so.
I mean look. Even FSJ does not have a blog which leaves me plenty of time to post comments on other blogs.
You can make money writing a blog? Get the fuck outta’ here! That sounds too easy … you mean, like angels come from heaven throwing money at barely literate gibbons tappin’ on keyboards? Whoa-ho, this is TOO much! I guess that’s better than buying Apple stock when it was $78.20 last month and now trades at $102 today. Yep, that’s hard work and I had to pay that freakin’ broker a fee for handling the transaction.
Whatever happened for blogging for fun? Oh, right, greed, stupidity, all the usual suspects. As you were, people.
Only if you’re Arianna Huffington. Your Fake Steve Jobs website was brilliant and hilarious and I just feel bad that it had to end, but you did the right thing. Still, I had high hopes of meeting a rich husband through your comment section. This one – not so much.
Hey Dannyboy -
Geez dude, drop the newsweek links – if anyone wanted to read YOU in THAT rag they will buy.
Now shoo, go away already. You had the funny once but as yourself you are uninteresting and boring.
Now c’mon, do that little CNBC hair flip thing once again, c’mon just once.
@Topazz
Nice to see you back! Sorry, I’m already taken – and I can’t afford the BIG LOVE thing these days. Looking forward to your future commentary
Dan,
to make money, you need eww-commerce thing. And WebObjects, preferably.
Some thinking, sweat and blood helps too. None of this bailout bullshit would be on the table if thinking, sweat and blood were soup du jour.
Here is how it works Dan. We all crank the wheels until they fall off. Then we print money to plug the holes created by the advantages of Internet and World Economy.
It is going to work, damn it.
My money is on guys who can sculpt metal and make it alive with OS X.
Are there any cornflakes people in the audience? The Kelloggs, the moral compasses? If there are, I kinda wonder if “breakfast of champions” applies to your product without Michael Phelphs.
Wow, so many hatahs here! Why don’t you guys just stop reading instead of leaving infantile comments.
Anyway, Dan, you are totally right. I too have been working feverishly on my blog to try to make some $$$, had almost given up, saw your article, and all of the sudden I’m like “what the heck was I wasting my time for?”
It occurs to me that the blogs making the most money are the ones that are telling other people they can make money by blogging. Kind of like MLM or those late night informercial, where you can send in $100 to buy a course that says “take out an ad that tells people to send you $100 to learn how to make money.”
It is really difficult to make any $$ from blogging if you are anonymous, like you were and like I am. Because I suspect most $$ made from blogs is from reputation enhancement and building credibility and authority in your field, and if you are anon you can’t get that. Affiliate sales and ads might work for some, but not if you are a humor/snark blog – even if you have a huge readership.
Blogging isn’t writing.
If you want to make money as a blogger you need to be more of an entrepreneur. Coming from a background as a professional writer, you could just submit your stories and let other people worry about selling ads and handling marketing. As a blogger you have to do that yourself.
Given your traffic on Fake Steve Jobs, you could have been making a LOT more. Google Adsense is great for sites with targeted content, which your blog was not (in fact, most blogs are not). Going down the route of displaying ads on a CPM basis or doing private ad sales (which would have blown your cover as FSJ) would have netted you far more money.
There are people out there doing it, but it takes more than slapping up Google Adsense. I know of people who make far more than $1,500/month from Adsense who get a tiny fraction of the traffic you did. They just have more targeted content.
You are correct that the vast majority of blogs are just hobbies and will never make anything. However, given the traffic you had, you could have done much better if you had a different model.
I’m bored.
Meanwhile, Google is Apple’s bitch.
The situation seems obvious is one applies common sense. There are plenty of skilled, talented, professional writers out there scratching a hard living pounding out copy for newspapers (not doing so well), magazines (doing a bit better), advertising agencies, etc. If amateurs could really make significant money by blogging, wouldn’t the professionals suddenly start blogging to avail themselves of the piles of money being thrown at bloggers?
A counter-argument to that line of reasoning implies that communication skills are easier to obtain and less important to the audience than “insight” and “perspective.” The counter-argument requires that one believe that someone’s thoughts are so important and compelling that they transcend the poor quality of presentation.
Another counter-argument is that this has already happened. Dan blogged via FSJ. Blogging helped him to acquire an audience, a bit of fame, a book deal, and a new job at Newsweek. While I’m sure he is making out nicely, I don’t get the feeling that he is shopping for his-and-her Ferraris or looking for a compound on Martha’s Vineyard. As has been noted elsewhere on the comment board, Dan’s blogging output has dropped significantly since he went to work for Newsweek. That would seem to imply that the Newsweek gig is more important than blogging to Dan in one or more ways, and I am going to assume that one of those ways is financial (would a man really abandon a multi-million dollar opportunity merely for the prestige of working for the Washington Post empire?).
It is a shame that it is over, but for a brief moment, there were blogs that were worth reading.
My take on Gawker Media is that if you find one of their blogs interesting you should look for the better blog they’re copying.
I’m sorry to intrude on this solitary activity. You write it, read it and review it. We other six people that mistakenly happen upon it it should just stay out of it. Unless you already know it won’t be read and reviewed by someone else, you just DON’T review your own work and provide the “money” quote. That really is the work of a guy in pajamas.
Listen up you wannabe writers. Writer is an artiste, as they say over in France. You gotta steal and you gotta ship if you wanna call yourself an artiste.
And yes, please, tell when did writing became a gold mine? Throughout history, writers (with few exceptions) have been starving artists.
So, blogging is just another funky way towards starvation.
Unless you have other skills to sell. Like, the vision thing or sculpting metal or making a bazillion on open source by selling it as OS X thing.
I was pretty sure people only blogged to become well-known and get their thoughts out where anyone can see them.
Dan, the problem why you aren’t making money is because you aren’t creating value for readers. There’s no visible, undeniable value. You don’t have any business model because of that.
Your stories are great but how do they help your readers? Does it help them save time, save/earn money? If not, why will they pay money to you? You’re not selling anything by blogging and if your business model is by selling online ads to Google or other advertisers, are you helping them create value?
If you take a look at all profitable blogs, not those with great traffic but not profitable blogs, you see a very clear value proposition, a very clear business model. Personally, I won’t pay $100 million for Techcrunch until I see the monthly cashflow statements. That’s the value (or lack of) investors are looking for, which Michael Arrington thinks he’s making.
Blogging is a platform. In the end, it comes down to what’s the point of that blog, what’s the value proposition. All business fundamentals apply if you want it to turn into a business.
I’ve a blog. I do affiliate marketing on it. I’ve regular comments from readers saying how much my blog has helped them, in a very concrete way. My revenue is increasing every month, even if it’s small. But remember that every mammoth company started small.
You want to make mega bucks? Start first by listening to Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders and learn how to create value first.
Help feed Dan’s kids. Buy this here or here. And don’t forget this.
Seriously, people, this journo may have to sell his kids to Somalians or Dick Cheney, so please, have a heart and buy his crap, already, please?
Dan,
egocentric exercises like making a ton of money are better left to the experts, like yours truly
)))
Starting a bullshit business like Zuckerberg kid is faster way to riches than blogging. You can download everything you need to know about PHP from BitTorrent
)))
Hey Dan
Thanks for clearing up when many of us already knew….you’re readers are of little value to you. How silly of any of us to think you wrote your blog because you’re a WRITER and thought the blog would allow you a new medium to provide ENTERTAINMENT and ENJOYMENT. The reality is you just hoped you’d find a way to make money doing it. As has been obvious for most of the last year, your current blog demonstrates you have no concern about providing ANYTHING here nor do you have any integrity.
So the FSJ story about apple offering to pay you off wasn’t true then?
D’oh, I really hoped it was.
I am not anonymous. As you can see this blog can track openIDs and since you see my pic, you know i put in the right e.mail, unlike you.
Dan used to be funny as FSJ. Lately he’s making articles bashing everything that comes around. He’s not constructive at all. Every article seems to be a link bait, he’s not even half the DL I used to read back then.
So yes he’s a great writer and had a bright carrier. Me, I think now he’s pushing that same carrier a bit down the hill while saying “hey, look how stupid people is on TEH INTERNETS”.
in summa: He’s looking a lot like Rob Enderle.
Got it now?
Dan, blogs haven’t even gone mainstream yet. Give it 5 years or so.
Today’s bloggers can be compared to Bill Hailey, but one day there will be an Elvis who will become a household name. And then it will really kick off.
You’ve got to have faith, and think about more than the money.
THIS BLOG MUST STOP!
The old site was entertaining, and this one could have been. Dan post links to his “News weak” articles every two weeks and the only original thoughts are in the comments? Then he calls too attention his OWN money quote. Are you kidding me?
To save time a brief look at the Feb. 23 post.
Take a look at my latest article in News weak “I’m Dan. I invented Fake Steve Jobs….friggin heard of it?” concerning Appple and CNBC. Money quote ” I swear I am not trying to parlay the sucsess of an anynomous blog into a regular spot on CNBC Closing bell….I just think Maria is hot….by the way Apple….Apple oh and Apple.
Comments:
Fill in some comment by some loser living in his paretnts basement trying to copy OR call himself FSJ.
and yet the beat goes on:
http://gdpwealth.wordpress.com
Money quote: “…none of my family, colleagues or staff were aware that through my past errors I am solely responsible for the global financial crisis and my sons’ addiction to fishing.”
Yours,
Bernie
Update: Google continues to bend over for Apple. Longer.Harder. Faster.
Hey manny, why don’t you get the f**k out of dodge and buy yourself a benz, willya?
Статья написана граммотным человеком…
Buy Danny’s stuff or you’ll make Vladimir Putin cry.
Angelman, it would be worthwhile buying, if it was still worthwhile.
Money is in the twitterz.
Twitterz is the new spim
Pee Dog writes whines in WSJ op/ed that BOD’s don’t look after shareholders’ interests. Boo-fucking-hoo and thanks for the newsflash, hyp-o-piss! This is the guy who previously enjoyed the favors of rubber stamp board of directors that ignored the plight of shareholders except Icahn.
I am selling GM and Chrysler, buying more Apple and twizzlers.
Maybe your next attempt at making money should be slamming your fingers into a drawer and charging to see it, maybe than, I’d pay to see it. What you did with this pile o’ crap blog and FSJ wasn’t writing, so don’t even try to pawn that off. You were being lazy and having fun. Period. You wanted more money which is why you wrote the stupid book, for money, for being lazy while trying to be someone else.
Not everybody can be successful at doing something that is fun, but at least you tried. But you did convince Newsweek to hire you, so maybe you are successful, if N/W wanted a bitter hack to write a tech column, they got it. P.S. could you see if they’re hiring in the waiting for inspiration to come department?
Idiots!
This is how you make money … !
Oddly enough, this article was only about tech blogs which is already a very densely populated atmosphere. Considering that there are millions of IT workers with strong opinions on new gizmos and gadgets and enough spare time to blog about it, no wonder there’s a huge glut in money-less blogs that talk about the same things.
But what about specialized blogs which require some real and actual research before a post gets published? Not that many people are willing to write them on a regular, protracted basis and those who don’t know what they’re talking about get weeded out very quickly so only a few are left. Every once in a while Discover Magazine, Seed Media or Discovery Communications come around and buy off a couple dozen of them, paying the blogger to keep doing what s/he’s doing.