There’s money in them thar blogs
Dave Winer saw $2.3 million in revenue from his blog last year.
People think blogs are about advertising, and I would agree, but they’re thinking in terms of clicks and eyeballs, and I’m thinking of technology that’s created using the intelligence of community participation.
Hell, you don’t even have to be in the technology business to reap those kinds of monetary rewards from clever use of your (or your company’s) blog. Unless you’ve got something to hide, I don’t know what would stop you from blogging properly (read: link away from your own site; I never trust a man without a blogroll).
As for ads on his blog, Winer says:
I don’t share this space with hitch-hikers. I use my blog for my own ideas. They make good money. No point diluting what I have to say.
Filed under: Blogging, Business, Communication, Life, Marketing, Measurement, Metrics, Numbers, PR, Search Engine Marketing, Technology, Treating Customers Well
“I never trust a man without a blogroll”
Whoops!
Playing Devil’s Advocate here, wasn’t that £2.3m principally from the sale of Weblogs.com and, if so, can that truly be said to be revenue from his blog?
(from a man with a decent-sized blogroll… :smile: )
Sure it can, since he used his blog as a way to gain insight on how his customers wanted his product developed and to build it into a property worth millions.
And that might well be the case - but he hasn’t drawn the connection well in his own posting and has left it as a non-useful example for those of us charged with connecting blogs and revenue for the more sceptical out there.
Which is, I think, a shame.
Actually, if you read his post and follow the further explanatory links, I think it’s pretty clear.
Oh, I have and, indeed, did back when he first posted it. The experience I have is that if you’re already used to thinking in that way, it’s clear. People whom I’ve pointed towards it who aren’t familair with the basic idea, don’t get it.
It’s a preaching to the converted/echo chamber things.
Ho hum. Time for paraphrasing and explanation writing.
Yeah, it’s a pain having to connect the dots for people. I’m trying only to work with those who have connected them, but don’t know what to do next (or need some help doing it). Because dot-connecting is just sales, and I don’t want to be in sales.
Ah, well, you have the freedom to choose who you work with. (inset envious xpression here) I don’t. That’s the pain of suddenly finding yourself as the in-house “expert” on something, I suppose.
Well, we all have the choice…I just made a different one, based on my circumstances and my own stress preferences. I think the turning point was hearing my words regurgitated - not always in the right order - by the guy who’d told me this social media stuff was overrated and irrelevant. (He now bills himself as a ’social media evangelist,’ which would be sad if it weren’t so funny.) I realised that people do come ’round, even if they forget who clued them in, and that I’d rather help people for whom it has clicked than deal with any more know-it-alls. Besides, curious and open-minded people are more fun and interesting to work with…by far.
Ah, truth be told, I’m probably being over-negative because I had a hard meeting with today. I actually love that moment when I see the light go on in someone’s eyes when they “get it”, despite a 10 years of “old” media habit.
Also, the only marketing weblogs.com ever got was writing about it on scripting.com.