I was a little surprised this morning when, after I’d given a talk on business blogging, a seminar attendee asked if I’d seen the Newsweek article this week on why it’s impossible to make money with blogs.
“Guess I’ll give it all back, then,” was my off-the-cuff answer.
But out of curiosity, I picked the mag up on the way back to my room. If you haven’t seen it, Daniel Lyons, a talented blogger known for two years as “Fake Steve Jobs,” has an editorial that explains why none of us can make money blogging.
Big traffic, no money
Fake Steve Jobs’ best month came with a traffic spike. His actual identity was revealed in the New York Times, sending more than a half-million people to his site in a single day.
His payout? For that half-million-visitor day, about a hundred dollars in AdSense earnings. For the entire month, he made $1,039.81.
Not quite what he was hoping for when he became a celebrity blogger and earned an impressive amount of attention and notoriety.
So if Fake Steve Jobs can’t monetize a blog, the rest of us are doomed, right? He worked hard, he created quality content, he had a terrific angle that went nicely viral. He was at the pinnacle, and he’s broke. So we will be too.
It must be true, he said it in Newsweek.
I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.
The expert weighs in
The article then tapped another source for a little expert credibility, Paul Verna, an analyst with eMarketer.
Verna’s take was that the real issue was “the lack of a clear business model that can generate substantial revenues.”
Verna’s on the right track, but we’re still a long way from the core problem.
If your business model is “I want to make money on the Internet,” you’re not going to get very far. The Internet is profoundly indifferent to your desire to make money with it.
Please notice that this does not mean that “there is no possible viable business model for any blog, other than a few fortunate exceptions that prove the rule,” which was the conclusion Lyons reached.
