The top reason, 'to express yourself creatively', applies to me because I have always been an introverted person and through blogging, I can express what i feel and how i can relate more to the people around me. I am glad to start blogging but earning an income from it seems quite far-fetched now, lol. Thanks for this great blog of yours, I think it is a very authoritative blog around as I am awed by the wide range of topic around here.

Many bloggers start up blogs with the intention of building it up so that the blogs can be their possible side income besides their main day job. Come on, it's getting harder to make decent money from traditional way nowadays therefore online is the way to go but I still think 3 million bloggers may not be true. A single blogger can own multiple blogs.

I just started this site, I am giving money just to spread the word about lnk'd!

I'll be honest by saying that blogging helps me to make money. But not through advertising models. I know many bloggers who enhance their careers, their market stature, get invites to speak at conferences, are quoted by MSM, are asked to work on interesting projects, and other things that can lead to money down the road.

Yes, I would still blog if those benefits didn't come my way. Like many others, I like sharing ideas around. But it is a fact that through my blog I have gotten paid speaking gigs, I have gotten consulting contracts and I have gotten a book deal. Does that count as "making money from blogging" - in my view it does. If I wasn't blogging, my ideas wouldn't be out there for the world to see and fewer people would want to hire me.

For my business, advertising doesn't make sense - I'm not into blogging to make a dime via Google AdSense on a post here and there. I am into blogging to share ideas with people, to have some fun, and to interact with smart people. And an added benefit is that maybe someone might hire me for an interesting project.

The exposure that Newstex gives me delivers my blog to a much wider audience. Newstex delivers into corporations and financial firms through partnerships with news distributors like LexisNexis. I want that added exposure. I post once and many more people see my thoughts. For me that's a good thing. Heck, I'd happily sign on to other blog networks for no royalty - I want the exposure. I want more people to read my stuff. For me and many other bloggers, distribution deals with companies like Newstex and others are great to get more eyeballs for free. No it won't make you rich via royalties. But it can make your blog more important.

Full Disclosure: I am on the Newstex Board of Advisors.

CrispAds the blog advertising network is up for sale.

Scott...

yeah, your right about making *some* money off blogging vs. making a living from blogging....two separate things. I'd certainly like to make a little extra off of my blogging, as I don't like the sploggers making money off of it.

T.

Well, BlogBurst have now changed their contribs agreement so it's a little more agreeable BUT is still a no brainer for a publisher. Free content from whomever they like whenever they like. Hmmm??

"the new agreement still makes no mention of compensation, one of the major sticking points brought out in the original discussion. Newman admits that he doesn't have an answer to that quetion at this time, that it is something they are accepting proposals on and working toward, but is hopeful that an upcoming click-thru tracking system will convince bloggers of the promotional value of BlogBurst. "

http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/?p=289

Putting my ScooptWords hat on for a minute, isn't this just like those crappy cheap websites offering 'increased exposure' for your prose? I mean, if your words are good enough to appear in SFGate, they are damned well good enough to pay for. Those - frankly ginormous ads - are earning someone hard cash. Alas not Scott Karp :( I believe it's called being buttfucked in your neck of the woods.

*gasps* Only 3 million bloggers blog to make money!? Just kidding. ;-)

@Joseph,

I think the revenue share would at least have to be 50/50 for me to consider joining anything like NewsTex. 30/70 in their favor is ridiculous. The reverse of that makes more sense to me.

Tish,

Thanks for the great observations.

I agree that most bloggers don't want to (nor would they if they did) make a living at blogging. But making a living and make some money are two separate things, and Google has made a fortune off of the latter. And you're right, off of splogs, etc., and that's a big problem for Google.

But I think the "gift-economy" is not an either/or. I blog for those long term returns. But why not get some cash in the short term? And that's where there is a huge opportunity for ad networks and the like.

Hi Scott,

I think you missed a few key points of the survey--that 44% of bloggers have published before, and that bloggers *might* be, not are, looking to make money. There's nothing conclusive to say that they want to make a living from blogging...still mostly a pipe-dream except for the 8% of A-list bloggers (most of whom don't make a living from their blogs either.)

Further, have you ever taken a good look at the numbers of blogs thare chock full of ad sense? Many are splogs making money off of other people's content. I've had my content scraped and added to these splogs (and, oddly, I think they're using blogburst to help with this) and there's no way to stop it. The page screenshot you're showing is quite similar to a splog--even though it's from a legit outlet like SF Gate, the effect is still the same. They're making revenue off your content.

And that simply highlights another problem with making money from blogging--the blogging community has a particular gift-economy zeitgeist running thru it. Gift someone with your content and, eventually, the gift will come back. Eventually. On a wing and a prayer.

Blogging's not really about making money. Blogs can be used to leverage means of making money. Blogs can be entry points into journalism or other writing professions (that's what it's been for me) but Blogging is not a means to an economic end, and most bloggers know this.

Those stats looked great, over a year ago when we published them from our own survey of over 1,000 responses... :) Just saying. The pew can write one heck of a press release.

http://www.blogkits.com/blog/?p=34

Joseph,

I told the folks at BlogBurst that I would stay in the network to see what they come up with. I don't fault the terms of their beta or their need to experiment to find the right model -- it just really struck me when I saw my full text content running next to ads.

As to the right revenue share, I don't think that there is a one-size-fits-all formula. I think it needs to be proportional to performance metrics, whether traffic, click-throughs, or conversions (although I think conversions is the future).

"Revenue sharing — whether with bloggers, people generating content in other forms, people making a purchase, or people just giving their attention in general — is the new paradigm, and companies in the new media space are well advised to “democratize” their business models. "

To the above comment by you, Scott, all I have to say is...Amen and Amen!

In fairness to Blogburst, they do say on their site that they will offer a revenue sharing plan with bloggers once they are out of beta, although they don't specify the percentages they plan on offering.

Just out or curiosity, and this question is both for you and others who have been tempted to join services like NewsTex mentioned above, what would you consider a fair share of the advertising revenues from companies like this?

Infinite Spectrum believes that all content is marketable and that everyone deserves a peice of the pie, not just the hosting companies or publishers.

As the Traditional Media folks begin to enter the New Media race, they are just trying to reinvent their old model and not the new one that is emerging. We are working on being able to provide content creators, be it blogs, photos, artwork, music, or online videos, services to match them up with advertisers and traditional media companies trying to get a foot hold in the digital world.

scott,
you've latched onto a dirty secret of the blogosphere - lots of people looking for content so they can attract advertising but not willing to share it with the content producers. the problem for most bloggers, however, is they don't have the time or resources to pursue advertising themselves so they settle for exposure using any means possible. it's the price of fame and glory!

I hear ya. I was recently asked to join NewsTex but I declined b/c their revenue share model seemed rather weak. They keep 70% and the 30% is then split between all the publishers according to the number of posts contributed. I've also turned down "offers" to join aggregation sites which run ads but don't share the revenue with the members. FOr the life of me I can't figure out why so many bloggers sign up for those kind of sites. IMHO, all you'll end up doing is penalizing your own site's search engine ranking b/c your content is duplicated on another site(s) with (likely) greater PageRank than yours.

Michael,

Sorry I didn't make that clear -- I did sign up for BlogBurst to see what it was all about, so I did absolutely agree to their terms. But it wasn't until I saw my content like this that I started to feel like they had stolen it -- even though I agreed to the terms. And yes I likely will quit if they don't change the terms. My point is that models that don't share the wealth don't seem particularly viable.

Scott,

Are you saying that SFGate / BlogBurst stole your content? I take it you signed up with BlogBurst by choice. If you're not happy with them why not just quit?