Blogs can mean big biz!

Most of the discussion on blogs is focussed on ideas such as freedom of expression, citizen journalists etc., but we dont usually look at blogs as a viable business venture. I came across an interesting feature on cnnmoney.com called Blogging for big bucks that wrote about blogs such as fark.com and paidcontent.org which have managed to generate not just interest from viewers, but huge revenues as well. Both these ventures are now earning million dollar revenues!

While paidcontent.org relies primarily on citizen journalists for their content, fark.com gets most its news from wire agencies or other news organisations. They rate their stories in various catagories such as "follow up", "obvious", " asinine", "silly" etc. . They carry readers' comments for all stories.

Both of these companies earn their revenues through online adverstising. Apparently more and companies are now investing in online advertising. According to the article:

"In recent months, big-name companies like Banana Republic and Cocal Cola have for the first time run ad campaigns on blogs, in the belief that blog communities often consist of concentrated numbers of the passionate and influential people all marketers want to reach. Intel bought its first blog ad in March; now all its ads run on blogs as well as traditional outlets. Says Thom Campbell, head of media strategy for Intel, "The audience on blogs is the cream of the crop.""

It would be interesting to see how this trend will rub off on online newspapers and help in making them profitable business ventures in their own right.