Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bloggers Struggle for Profitability

Running a blog site and making money is about as easy as running a restaurant. It takes countless hours, lots of people willing to work for not much money, and the majority fail to every turn a profit.

Mashable's Mark Hopkins writes about Huffington Post's maybe-maybe not profitability and questions why political blogs are having a hard time making money as compared with tech sites.

That's an easy one. Tech sites -- like cooking sites, or car sites, are largely about products and the demographic can be sold to advertisers for their consumption. It is an easier sell because it is a targeted market.

Politics - like sports -- is easier to write about and tougher to sell because people like to talk more than they do act, and anyone can have an opinion on it, so the barrier to entry is lower. What do people from the left or write like to buy? How can you sell beer or hotel advertisers on the demographic that is different than what USA Today or CNN has to sell?

Also, Huffington Post's refusal to pay its contributing writers is bad for the industry. Advertisers might not think this deeply, but why sell against a free site -- what does this say about the website's management.

Posted By John Gartner at 09:25 AM
Permanent Link: Bloggers Struggle for Profitability | Comments (0)

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