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Is there a Long Tail of Blogging Dollars?

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Jeremy Toeman

Saw an interesting post over at IP Democracy this morning on how there is a bit of a divide between those who make money from blogging (earning roughly $1K per year) and those who make money from blogging (earning more than $1K per day).  In the article, Cynthia writes:

(It’s very depressing to me that one of the biggest and earliest bloggers out there, Jeff Jarvis, makes only $1,000 per month for his efforts.)

I share her sentiments, and recall Guy Kawasaki’s “reveal” earlier this year as to his ~$3K of “income” despite amazing site traffic and popularity. Although Google AdSense expert Ruben claims it’s Guy’s own fault, I think it is becoming more and more clear that the pot of gold is a lot closer to a lump of clay, albeit a slightly shiny one. 

This site receives (at the time of writing) between 2000-3000 unique readers per day on average according to my server stats, and right around 2000 per day according to Google Analytics (which is probably a bit closer to reality).  Alexa ranks the site around ~165,000 of all Web sites (although they state that anyone ranked below 100,000 should treat the data as “not reliable“).  Technorati has me around ~21,000, placing me in the top 1% of their tracked blogs.

Most people will say this is at least average traffic, if not pretty good.  It’s worth less than $1K per year, which covers hosting fees and a few incidentals.  So in classic “long tail theory,” I’m somewhere off in that thin part of the graph.  But the interesting part is this: so are the people in the top 0.01% of ranked blogs! 

I’m going off on a limb here, but my hunch is this: the “thick part” of the graph is made up mostly of spam blogs and squatters.  Either that, or the entire blogosphere is sitting in the tail, regardless of the traffic going to the top contributors.

So the money is clearly not much to write home about for most of us.  Except when I consider that in that batch of 2000ish readers per day are a pretty good selection of key influencers and thought leaders in my industry (yes, you!).  I might not be able to put a dollar figure, so I guess I’ve got to value it MasterCard-style: priceless.

More data points, facts, and figures on blogging for dollars over at BusinessWeek and the Christian Science Monitor.

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5 thoughts on “Is there a Long Tail of Blogging Dollars?”

  1. tivoboy says:
    February 5, 2007 at 8:02 am

    Welcome back!
    I caught this article this AM as well, found it par for the course of the analysis that has been focussing on the blog industry over the past six months. I wouldn’t say, however, that the think part of the distribution falls to spammers and squaters, there are of course the techcrunch’s of the world that draw in some serious $$

    Reply
  2. Pingback: BlogKits Performance Marketing Network Blog » Nobody Cares About The Long Tail Of Blogging, Should They?

  3. Ricky Cadden says:
    February 5, 2007 at 8:24 am

    Very interesting article. I’ve recently started my blog, I launched around Thanksgiving. I’d previously read Business 2.0’s article on blogging, and thought, wow, there’s people who make MILLIONS doing this. But that’s not the real reason, and I would submit not the reason that most people start their blogs. I think we have these outlets for one of several reasons:

    1. To have a voice. I’ve been active on HowardForums for three years, and have amassed a reputation in some of those sub-forums, but I wanted to have a voice other than a forum posting.

    2. To make contacts – again, there’s only so much you can do in a forum community. I’ve only blogged for 3 months and yet I’ve made contacts with people I normally wouldn’t have

    3. To give back to the community – online it’s a community thinktank, and by commenting on others’ blogs and writing posts in response to other’s posts, it enriches the community.

    So like you mentioned, I’d classify blogging as more of a “priceless” pasttime, rather than an income generator. I certainly haven’t quit my day-job.

    Reply
  4. HMTKSteve says:
    February 8, 2007 at 11:46 am

    I’m begining to think that some people might be confusing review sites with blogs.

    Review sites tend to favor afilliate deals and make more money on a CPA model than most bloggers do with a CPC model.

    Reply
  5. Pingback: Out of the Box » Blog Archive » Happy Birthday, Out of the Box

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Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

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