Monetization for the Small Blogger

Information

I’m an admittedly small blogger. I have a thousand or so readers of my daily livejournal blog, a kind of a personal look at my life that includes stories about my job, my kids, and my own stupidity. I have a hundred readers of a writing blog I maintain, and a couple hundred readers of a circus blog I started several years ago. I’m the definition of a small blogger.

I’d love to make a little (okay, a lot of) money on my blogging, but up until now, that really hasn’t been an option. I tried the usual adsense track, but that earned me about thirteen cents in a year, so that’s not a way to go.

But by next year, small bloggers like me just may have a way to monetize our blogs (small podcasters too). Larry Genkin, the founder and editor of Blogger and Podcaster Magazine, has opened a new site intended to help small bloggers turn their hobby into a more lucrative business. I’m skeptical but interested, and signed up. The site is accepting signups, but will not go live until early 2009. The site is the Blogger and Podcaster Network.

Another Publication Moves to the Web

internet

Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor announced that it would be going to web-only publication. That isn’t exactly true, as they will continue to produce a weekly news magazine in printed form. But the fact is, the majority of their work will now be done online.

Of course, the transferring of periodicals to the web has been happening for quite some time; there was a day when newspapers and magazines could be cutting edge on their news. Now, they are days or weeks behind the information we can get at a snap on the Internet. In addition, the costs of producing a print publication are skyrocketing; publishing on the web is certainly more cost-effective.

I think there’s still a place for print periodicals to exist, certainly. I read several hard-copy newspapers each week and will continue to do so. I also subscribe to a handful of magazines whose information is useful to me. I do think that if a periodical does not fill a needed niche, then it is destined to die. It goes back to the “scarce goods” concept.

But how do these periodicals monetize their web content, and continue to be able to pay staff and overhead costs? That becomes the question. Several recent studies indicate that web readers are easily able to ignore web advertising, and some browsers even provide plug-ins that block ads for readers.

But studies also show that readers of the web prefer short reads of 3-4 paragraphs, and do not tend to read in-depth articles the way they do in a print publication. So, if you move to the web, do you run the risk of making your information much more shallow to appeal to the “quick read” audience that the web provides?

Big questions with no answers, at this point.

Consumer Electronics Show 2009 Preperations!

ces

Ces2009It’s hard to believe that in about 70 days the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show will be upon us. I also cannot believe I am going to have to shell out nearly $2500 bucks which is the going rate for a hotel room during the event.

Vegas really rips people off during a show like CES. Anyway planning is underway, and based on our coverage the last three years you all must be licking your chops waiting for the pile of interviews and content that comes from us during and after CES.

Our daily wrap up shows in 2008 reached over 750,000 viewers! The 120 plus interviews posted after the event reached millions.

The event is really a killer physically/mentally because you go a whole week with almost no sleep, and your on your feet for hours. Last year I lost 13 pounds during the show. A great way to burn off Holiday over eating.

Andy McCaskey and I are on the sponsor hunt in a big way. The exposure for our sponsors is as always huge. Our videos content last year reached millions of viewers, and resulted in literally 100’s of thousands of customer referrals to the companies we interviewed.

The 2008 coverage is still racking up views, its content that keeps on giving back all year long. We are in such high demand that companies exhibiting at CES are already calling to setup interviews! In response to this we are ramping up this year to have more teams on the ground, no one is guaranteed a interview, but we know where to find the most innovative and cool products CES has to offer.

If your interested in working with the most sought out team at CES you need to act now. If you are interested in sponsoring us this year drop me a email or call me today at 808–741–4923. I have a sponsorship and information packets ready we have three sponsorship slots available.

No one covers CES like Andy and I. As a added bonus for our viewers we will have more back channel content this year than last. We will also be streaming some of our content live. Contact me for interview information or a sponsorship kit for our 2009 CES Coverage ceo@rawvoice.com

Podcasting Advertising – Smart Choice in Crappy Economy

Podcast

I spent about a hour on the phone today with a media buyer who is exploring the podcasting advertising space for the first time. She represents a well known Fortune 500 company.

As we talked I asked her why it had taken them so long for them to look into advertising in podcast. Her reply was “we have to get smarter in a crappy economy”.

Overall the conversation was a very good one and I hope to introduce the company in Quarter 1 2009.

The most amazing part of the conversation was when we talked budgets when I laid out dollar amounts she got pretty excited. In essence she said you mean I can reach XX,XXX,XXX number of people in my exact demographic for X number of dollars and spend less for 90 days of advertising reaching who I want to reach, that what I spend in one week on TV which has no such guarantees.

When my answer was of course followed by we back it up with proven metrics she was stunned.

Podcast Advertising is a Smart Choice in a Crappy Economy!

Want to know more about advertising in Podcast in a Crappy economy contact me at ceo@rawvoice.com

Apple – Podcast – App Store & Rest of Story

Apple

NoiphoneApple really upset the developer community last month when it rejected several podcasting applications from being approved to the iPhone App Store. With the upcoming 2.2 iPhone software the real reason may now be known!

It appears that Apple has added stand alone downloading of podcast directly to your iPhone without the need of using iTunes in version 2.2.

If indeed this is what they have done, it proves that Apple was Anti-Competitive in denying the applications that were made for this same purpose. Their heave handed actions was to get rid of the competition before they added their own functionality.

I remain committed to only building Android Applications due to this apparent anti-competitive nature that Apple has.  Thanks JW for the Tip

Not So Bright

Apple

Sometimes I’m not so bright. I don’t always use my toys/tools to their best advantage. Oh, I’m using them, just not to the full extent they should be used.

I’ve had my iPod for going on 3 years. GNC was the first podcast I ever listened to, and I have been around since before episode 200. All this time I’ve owned my iPod, I’ve done nothing more than a download a few audio books, transferred all of my CD’s to the iTunes library, and set up play lists, as well as getting a pretty good collection of regular podcasts I listen to. When it came to iTunes, I never used it for more than just keeping my library and adding or removing podcasts. I figure if my iPod ever bites the dust and I replace it, it’ll be pretty easy to restore everything to a new device.

The other day I walked into a colleague’s office and he had some great jazz music playing. He was fixing my non-updating Dell laptop (apparently the network settings on our domain were not allowing auto updates to non-campus-resident equipment) so I was in there for a while while he got it to update and fixed the settings so it would auto-update in the future. I finally asked him what station he was listening to.

“It’s iTunes.”

You mean music you’ve downloaded?

“No, iTunes radio.”

ITunes has radio? I’ll be durned. He showed me where it was and I stared at that directory, “Radio,” realizing that it had been there all along on my iTunes but I’d never bothered to notice it, much less check it out.

This is music nirvana! There is pretty much every type of music you can imagine, streaming like a radio station, the majority without ads or commercials of any kind. I had no idea it was there, and I’ve been using iTunes for at least 3 years. I’ve spent the better part of the last two days surfing around finding stations I like and memorizing their names so I can find them again. I’ve been unsuccessful in bookmarking them in any way so I can quickly go back to them. I may be missing something, and I’m going to keep playing with it.

Now I’m just going to hope I’m not the only one who never noticed the radio directory on iTunes, or I’m going to feel really dumb.

One More Reason I Don’t Like Analog Radio

Media

This morning I pile into my truck like I normally do – need a cup of coffee bad. Need my podcasts bad. Start the car and I normally listen to some Classic Rock music – Maybe Zepplin or Pink Floyd. Forigner, Styx, Journey and I suppose a little AC/DC.

But as I turned on the radio, I heard the song “Whatever You Like”, one of the newer songs by TI (and already parodied by Weird Al I must add).I figured I must’ve hit a button and accidentally went to the Hip-Hop station. As I looked at the dial, I realized – it’s on my station.

I was floored. I couldn’t believe after all this time of listening they just close the doors like that. I remember when they opened the doors – For 2 weeks they played old radio jingles. Then the Classic Rock started. That was 6 1/2 years ago and I’ve been listening until this morning.

Now it’s a Hip-Hop station. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It’s more that Hip-Hop stations have jumped across the dial – Basically a radio station switches format and a couple months later it either switches again or stops broadcasting altogether.

It makes me think more about finally getting a stereo with WiFi access so I can just download music or Podcasts to listen to in the car. I had a rental car a couple weeks back where it contained not only Sirius, but also had a USB port where I could plug in a flash drive and listen to my favorite stuff.

I suppose I could just get a HD radio and get more stations. I won’t be able to get that radio station though – for it’s been disbanded. It also doesn’t change the issue – Big corporation can always change the format or disband the station.

What really gets me is the station decided to make the switch without notice. Now on their website we have a small news article saying it’s closed, but doesn’t say why. It doesn’t really matter. I think I am going to find alternatives to getting music.