Duncan Riley> I’d normally being reporting on an interesting story posted by Adam L. Penenberg at Wired on an upstart Hong Kong Chinese blogger who is setting up a blog network modelled on Gawker Media, but there is one line in the article that changes the whole tone of the this post:
“no one has gotten rich off blogs in the West”
really. Well Adam, define rich!
Sure, there are no Donald Trumps or similar in the blogosphere, but to say that no one has has gotten “rich” in the blogosphere sets the bar to high.
But let me defend my attack. Lets look at the obvious candidates: both Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton are doing well out of blogging. Sure, we don’t know the exact figures but they are now employing people (not commision but actual set rates) and at least with Calacanis he’s got money to spend in travelling Europe when required. The blogs themselves would be worth millions, so in any reasonable look at it, Denton and Calacanis are millionares based on the value of their blogs alone.
Lets look at someone like Australia’s own Darren Rowse of Problogger.net, who through his network of 17+ blogs makes very good money. And people like Darren aren’t alone. Sure, I’m not making millions from blogging but sites like the Daily Kos and others charge $2k per week for ads, big money in anyones language. And in my terms, if you can make a confortable living from blogs, you are rich.
Sure, there are not a lot of huge blogging multi-millionaires, but to say no one has “gotten rich” from blogs is unfair and unjust. For the three I name there are at least two dozen more who are making big money from blogs, and are sitting on sites potentially worth millions that I know of, and probably a lot more again.
