(Sidenote: Do you pronounce it "ad-ver-tize-ment" or "ad-ver-tiz-ment"? I use the latter pronounciation, which makes no sense given my linguistic heritage. I dunno why.)
So several of my favorite blogs have recently started sporting ads. Bitch, Ph.D. is one. Dooce, who wrote a post about it the other day, is another. First, not that anyone needs my permission, but I'd like to go on record saying that I have absolutely no problem with that. I can ignore the ads, and I am all for these fantastic women being compensated for their writing. I am also firmly of the belief that since we're fucking surrounded by advertising anyway, whether we want to be or not, we may as well use it to our advantage whenever we can.
What I don't get, though, is how running these ads is helping the bloggers. Do y'all get paid just to have them up there? Is it based on hits? Do the ads actually have to be clicked on for your to get paid? Dooce says she's supporting her family with her blog--how is that possible? And, more importantly, how can I help? If I actually need to click on an ad every time I read a post in order for the blogger to get paid, I can certainly do that, but I need instructions!
I saw this on Emilin's blog the other day. Is it for real? Does it have something to do with this question?
My blog is worth $9,032.64.
How much is your blog worth?
I'm very confused.
Comments (4)
Wait. You can get money from writing your blog? This would be beyond cool, and I wouldn't feel like I was selling out at all, because I am mostly conscienceless anyway. I will follow this train of thought with interest.
Posted by Sofiya | November 3, 2005 11:49 AM
Do you say "ad-ver-tiz-ing"?
Posted by Anonymous | November 3, 2005 12:45 PM
I'm pretty sure bloggers are paid based on traffic, not on click-throughs, so you shouldn't have to click on the ads for the blogger to benefit. However, you do need to visit their blog directly (as opposed to using an aggregator).
Posted by Anonymous | November 4, 2005 12:02 PM
The old advertising model is to pay based on traffic, but I would be stunned to find an ad system that still uses that as a basis. Advertisers realized at some point that unlike billboards, they could actually demand that the response to their advertising be tracked on a one by one basis. So to make any money, you need a LOT of visitors who are actually clicking on the ads.
I use an aggregator that lets me view the pages directly, rather than just viewing the content stripped out of the pages, so I see the ads and can click on them. And I do when they interest me, so I can support some of the folks who are even just trying to cover their server costs - let alone live off writing, like Dooce.
Bottom line: the Internet is no longer a money machine. As far as the "value" of your blog, those numbers are based on the purchase of a company called Weblogs Inc by AOL. Weblogs Inc has a blog network - basically, they own a bunch of blogs. A guy named Tristan Lewis, whose site is down this morning, calculated how many links to these blogs were being tracked by Technorati, then figured out what percentage of all the Technorati links those links represented. Blah blah blah, this is how much the links to those blogs are worth and so this is how much a link to your blog is worth. More links to your blog from other blogs = more theoretical value.
Posted by Skye | November 5, 2005 7:52 AM