BusinessWeek exposes some of the blogging success stories out there. It is proof positive that our mutual obsession with blogging can actually turn into decent income if we are so inclined.
Eric Nakagawa, a software developer in Hawaii, posted a single photo of a fat, smiling cat he found on the Internet, with the caption, "I can has cheezburger?" in January, 2007, at a Web site he created. It was supposed to be a joke. Soon after he posted a few more images in the same vein: cute cats with funny captions written in a silly, invented hybrid of Internet shorthand and baby-talk. Then he turned the site into a blog, so that visitors could comment on the postings. What happened after that would have been hard for anyone to predict.
"We just thought, O.K., they're funny,"Nakagawa says. "Suddenly we started getting hits. I was like, where are these coming from?"
I had no idea that blog just started in January! Their hits doubled each month and at this point is getting 500,000 hits per day! Those hits translate into income, if from nothing else than the ads on the site.
Like pretty much the rest of us, the 'big money blogs' started their blogs as a hobby and saw them grow into big income. BusinessWeek refers to them as accidental entrepreneurs. Here are some examples of what the 'big money blogs' are making ...
BoingBoing is the big boy of blogs (no surprise there), with 22 million page views from 2.6 million unique visitors PER DAY! (I have a way to go to reach those numbers! LOL) Income is estimated at over $1 million per year.
I Can Has Cheezburger? (mentioned above) averages $5,600 in monthly income.
ShoeMoney can buy a lot of shoes with the money he's making on his blog. Actually, ShoeMoney is the brainchild of Jeremy Schoemaker and brings in 20,000 unique visitors per day translating into a $12,000 per month income. Schoemaker has other internet businesses such as auctionads. He says he works online about 30 minutes a day. I want me one of those checks he's holding up!!
Overheard in New York has 6 million page views per month and an estimated $8,100 monthly revenue.
Kottke.org limits ads on his site intentionally preferring to focus on good service to a smaller group of readers. He earns $5,300 per month with one ad on his site.
TalkingPointsMemo gets $45,000 per month.
Perez Hilton gets $110,000 per month.
Gothamist generates about 7 million page views per month with an income of between $50,000 and $60,000 per month.
TechCrunch earns $200,000 per month.
Go Fug Yourself was a site started by two friends for the sole purpose of mocking celebrity fashion. They are now mocking the celebs full time with $6,420 in monthly income.
Mashable has 4 million page views per month and generates $116,000 per month.
Problogger doesn't disclose details of his income, but claims over 6 figures per year. So we know its over $100,000 per year. I'm betting that's an extremely low estimate.
Michelle Malkin and Hot Air has over 220,000 hits per day. She claims her blog and vblog (Hot Air) operate at a slight loss due to the necessity for high end servers to handle traffic surges. She says her income is primarily through her print media articles. Hmmm ...... Okay. Although, I admit I've only recently been seeing more ads on her blog.
Well, if that doesn't give you some encouragement to keep doing what your doing, I don't know what will. I do believe that the main factor in having a successful blog (however you define success) is that you enjoy it and you write about what you are interested in and know.
Happy blogging!
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