There appears to be a lot of discussion and more than a little confusion over ad revenue and blogging given PJM's decision to disband its blogger network.
There are now more ad dollars than ever flowing to the Internet, blogs should be booming, right?
Wrong.
As the ad cash has flowed into the Internet format, including to blogs, the number of Internet destinations, portals and blogs, etc has grown even more so over the years. I remarked to a PJM blogger in email recently how much more fun it was when we had this place to ourselves a few years ago.
Nearly every Right and Left blog at least knew of one another and there was almost a neighborhood feel to the medium. Not no mo', one might say. Things change.
I've made a living out here for two years now. Any money that comes in through this blog's ads is gravy. I spend it via PayPal on fun things I want and don't really count it as income, except for tax purposes. I've had one or two blegs in almost five years as I never factored this into my income model. Actually, if I forgot to pay taxes on it, I suppose I could qualify for the Obama administration.
I make money consulting on projects or blogging in specific areas rarely if ever even mentioned here. That's my business, this is my hobby. Many sites, even some very large ones, are moving away from ad revenue models. It takes a unique set of factors for them to work and relative revenue rates are projected to continue to decline due to on going growth on the Internet. I assume that is why PJM has switched to a subscription model for its video offerings.
I'm not a PJM blogger so the issues aren't directly relevant to me. But on a personal level, I feel privileged to have been a part of something that has brought incredible and substantive change to media having been out here for coming up on five or so years now. And I hope to continue to be a part of it. But change doesn't stop.
You adapt or you die. That isn't just blogging and the Internet. That's life.
And life and blogs and blogging go on. Cool!
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