The blogging parodox

I do like this Venn diagram



via Andrew Sullivan

Why blogging won't make you rich but why it is important

According to Daniel Lyons you will never get rich from blogging (HT-adrian monck)

He relates how

For two years I was obsessed with trying to turn a blog into a business. I posted 10 or 20 items a day to my site, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, rarely taking a break. I blogged from cabs, using my BlackBerry. I blogged in the middle of the night, having awakened with an idea.

But his story shows how difficult a media it is to attract advertising cash.

Even when his identity was released by the NYT and he had 500,000 hits in a day and 1.5m in a month his earnings were $1,039.81.

When you think that this is an unusual amount of hits,this after all was a big newstory,just imagine the figures faced by a run of the mill blog

Advertisers shy away from blogs because they're too unpredictable and because few blogs attract anything approaching a mass audience—and even those that do face so much competition that ad rates remain pitifully low.

However taken as part of a business concept it can and will have its rewards.We have to accept that web based advertising is not on its own going to create a sustainable economic model for either an individual blogger or a media organisation.

For a blogger though it is an integral part of a network and is one tool of a myriad of digital channels designed to get to an audience

Why no large sector British commercial bloggers-blame the BBC

Over at Techcrunch,Ashley Norris,wonders why unlike the USA and the likes of the Huffington Post,and Gawker media,we have not seen an explosion of independent commercial blogs.

He gives a number of reasons.

1.Economies of scale

US sites have at least five times more readers to aim at and that counts for an awful lot when most online advertising is still based around a CPM model

2.A conservatism amongst British advertisers

many brands and their agency planers have chosen to play it safe and will work with established media brands

3.a lack of UK media entrepreneurs

many of the most successful, blogs and websites in the UK have been developed by freelance journalists who have worked on their sites in addition to writing for others, and in many instances rival media.

4.a lack of top management support

As a rule European VCs don’t tend to be too interested in media unless it is supported by a technological innovation

5.whether there is a gap in the market

Several commentators have suggested that the explosion in successful blogs occurred largely because Americans distrust established media and see it as being in the pockets of big business

6.The BBC

Were the BBC to take a more enlightened view of British independent and social media it could do a lot to encourage young talent to develop UK media properties thereby greatly enriching British media.