Want an inspiring story about a blogger who entertained so much success he recently quit his M.D. practice to blog full-time?
This is a story first published on July 21, 2008 in the New York Times about Dr. Arnold Kim, the founder of MacRumors, a leading gossip and technology rumor site about Apple, indicating he hung up his stethoscope to focus on growing his blog's success. What blog is it? MacRumors.com.
MacRumors is not an ordinary blog:
By the numbers:
Traffic: 4.4 Million visitors per month (source: Quantcast.com)
Page Views: 40 Million Page views per month (source: Quantcast.com)
Value: Over $25 Million.
(Note: Quantcast tends to estimate traffic numbers LOWER than actual real numbers I've witnessed. Therefore, as of this posting, MacRumors probably has well over 5 Million visitors, making it high enough traffic to easily justify over $10K a month in ADS ALONE!)
According to the NY Times article about Dr. Kim leaving his medical profession to focus on MacRumors:
"The site placed MacRumors No. 2 on a list of the “25 most valuable blogs,” right behind Gawker Media and ahead of The Huffington Post, PerezHilton.com, and TechCrunch. Two of the other tech-oriented blogs on its list, Ars Technica and PaidContent, were sold earlier this year, reportedly for sums in excess of $25 million."
Get this: MacRumors has more traffic than either Ars Technica and PaidContent combined, therefore making worth easily more than $25 million in possible value!
Dr. Kim's secret? TRAFFIC.
On his personal blog, last month he posted this answer to how his blog makes money:
“It boiled down to one simple accomplishment: building traffic. That’s it. If you have a site that attracts a lot of visitors, you will be able to make money. On the Internet, traffic equals power, which subsequently equals money.”
So, if you're wondering how to do this yourself, I'd suggest the following:
1. Find a topic many people will care about. Rumors about Apple, a private company that guards secrets with a loyal following in the millions, clearly is one of those topics.
2. Write well. MacRumors articles are extremely well-written..
3. Write often. MacRumors posts 2 - 4 articles PER DAY. His articles use the short, couple of paragraphs-type format, which makes it easier to post more often.
4. Stay with it. MacRumors started in 2000. That's about the same time I started AspireNow.com. I think if I'd posted as much content to AspireNow as Dr. Kim posted to MacRumors, I'd have a website worth a lot, too.
5. Build a solid website structure. MacRumors is logical, and covers a WIDE variety of sub-topics related to the core - everything from iPhone to MacAir, from WebCam to Earnings Releases.
6. Cultivate a following. MacRumors has an active comment section: some articles get hundreds of comments within just a month or two.
7. Post ads in logical places. MacRumors posts a banner ad across the top of the blog. Another set of Google image ads run smack dab in the middle of his articles. I counted two block image ads that also take a lot of space up. He places Amazon and MacMall ads as his "Mall" in the upper right sidebar - a prime spot on his page. He's gone pro: more than that, MacRumors' advertising is now professionally managed.
Considering Dr. Kim invested over $200,000 in his education and enjoyed practicing medicine, clearly he had to have a lot of success with the blog to justify that switch.
What other ideas do you have for building a website or blog into such a huge success that you can leave your professional job behind?
Comment below to share your thoughts!
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Jul 25, 2008
Trading A Stethoscope For A Blog
Feb 25, 2008
Adsense For Video
Want Adsense for Video?
Adsense is rolling out a beta program to make money through the video that you post on your blog or website.
Here is a video that details this exciting new ad revenue program:
There are numerous opportunities to make money from VideoAdsense:
1. Any site with targeted video can have Google insert a video ad, and you'll make money from that ad.
2. YouTube Partner Program. Anyone creating original video that gets viewed by thousands per month, can apply for this program, and gain access to many additional advertising revenue opportunities.
3. In-video ads - an ad at the bottom of the video can show, or a contextual overlay ad, which will offer more ad opportunities. This is going to be the primary publisher's solution for advertising in the future for video.
While Adsense is in beta, you'll have to meet some qualifications to share in this program. Eventually, I'm sure Google will open this up to many more publishers.
To learn more, visit Google.com/videoads
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Jan 23, 2008
Net Audio Ads Pay-Per-Play
NetAudioAds Pay-Per-Play is an exciting new way to offer advertising on your website.
Always looking for innovative ad streams on websites, I came across this Pay-Per-Play system of advertising and signed-up: http://www.sellingppp.com/a.cgi?ppp=1205662828
If you click on the long-copy sales letter link (http://www.sellingppp.com/details.cgi?ppp=1205662828), you'll see that NetAudioAds Pay-Per-Play offers 5 second audio ads on your website that pays publishers 25% - often better than Google pays for Adsense. And, NetAudioAds pay-Per-Play pays on IMPRESSIONS - not on CLICKS! That's cool, because it's easier to predict.
It doesn't stop there... REFER YOUR FELLOW WEBMASTERS!
Also, if you REFER OTHERS into their ad system, you can go three levels deep and make money on it, too. I'll share my numbers once I can substantiate. Please report back in and let me know how this system works for you...
http://www.sellingppp.com/details.cgi?ppp=1205662828 __________________________________
Copyright © 2008 by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.
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Oct 22, 2007
Tying It Together With Twine: Semantic Search
So, what is Web 3.0? Early indicators point to the idea of taking all of this information we search for, and putting a savvy AI (artificial intelligence) engine behind it so that our search results or social networks get ramped up on steroids. For example, rather than just telling you "what's popular now" on your home page when you log in to your network at My Space, the 3.0 version present "here's what YOU would find popular now, based upon YOUR tastes and interests." Cool, huh?
What's really great about 3.0 search, though, is the promise of future advertising spots. See, the web is driven by advertising. Many of the blogs out there making money aren't making ANY money by selling product or even offering e-books. They're just WRITING. And they WRITE a LOT. One blogger I know experienced a traffic surge from zero to millions within two years by simply writing intelligent articles every 1.2 days. He wrote over 300 article posts within the first year, alone. However, a QUALITY article post is worth more than FREQUENT posts, according to this blogger. My experience is that QUALITY is more important than quantity; however, without writing a lot or posting a lot it is hard to tell which articles will be "hits" without more material.
Advertisers love blogs and content rich websites. Why? Because they are targeted to specific content and ideas: All about auto-sports racing might be one blog idea, whereas another blog is all about gadgets. If you can then target your demographic, you have better advertising than a general ad posting to a general site.
Web 3.0 makes this more of a reality.
And, apparently, it's here.
On October 19, 2007, Radar Networks announced Twine™, a revolutionary new service that helps you share, organize, and find information.
Radar Networks, led by Web visionary Nova Spivack (who co-founded EarthWeb and Dice.com), is pioneering the Semantic Web (sometimes referred to as Web 3.0) with a new platform for the next-generation of Web applications.
The first application released on this platform is Twine, a new service for sharing, organizing and finding information with people you trust. Use Twine to better leverage and contribute to the collective intelligence of your friends, colleagues, groups and teams. Twine ties it all together.
The idea behind the SEMANTIC WEB is to provide a way to search data beyond the first string. I consider it more of a search concierge with stronger hooks to what I want. I've developed a model and working on more tools of this nature for organization empowerment (contact me if you're curious), so you know I consider it useful.
You can view some screenshots of the intial Beta from TWINE where TWINE is reviewed.
I just reviewed the description for the initial version of this platform and have to say it looks promising. I'll be reporting more on Web 3.0 in the near future after more beta-testing.
Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.
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Sep 28, 2007
Internet Video Ads: Is This The Future of Advertising?
Have you noticed the increasing prevailing pattern of major news sources putting ads in the front of their video footage on Internet Video clips?
Is this annoying you? It bugs the heck out of me. But, they've got my eyeball attention, so why not hold those "eyeballs" hostage?
There are different methods being utilized regarding advertising on, around, and within videos played on the Web. We'll examine five of them here:
1. Ads around the box. These are the least intrusive, to me. They can put an ad next to the box, I'll still see it, but it isn't BLOCKING the content I'm trying to view. This is a friendly way of doing ads, although the ad is not interactive beyond the simple click and view. An example of ads around the box is with Yahoo, who puts their ad in a sidebar on their home page. The ad may or may not be interactive. Yahoo also uses text ads for "sponsored by" for their stock watch and also the "marketplace section" appear to be text-based ads.
2. Peeling or Rollover ads. This is a fairly new ad methodology where you show an ad that peels back from the page you are viewing. The peeler ad is not very intrusive, and the viewer only sees the total ad content if they click the peeler. One of the more interesting Rollover ads I saw came up today while looking at Ad ratings for this blog article. An example of a peeling ad includes:
I saw a "roll-over this ad" comment and moused over it, to reveal an Eye Wonder Testimonial ad campaign. I loved the ad format, with testimonials from clients, then they used my #5 strategy here, end of ad to ask "Does your rich media company deliver results like this for you? They should. Contact Eye Wonder." Brilliant! (Only Eye Wonder's website fails the rule of Google [read: load fast] and took so long to load I got bored and clicked away from their site.
Here's a page with the Eyewonder rollover, last I checked: http://www.clickz.com/3627158 or
http://cdn.eyewonder.com/100125/adWdrDemos/749947/749947_88939_24597_Demo.html
(I just read that the ad won an award). According to Eye Wonder, "Video has been embraced as the future of online advertising." I tend to agree with them. Methods that work as well as theirs are likely to further that aim.
3. Ads in front of the video.
Now, here's where I was expecting to find ads in front of the video: at NBC, at their version of "The Office" show online. Guess what? Not only did I NOT find ads in front, I found NO ads at all! The shock! The Horror! So, sometimes, in life, on the Internet, we are still pleasantly surprised (note: with nagging thought in the back of my mind..."I wonder when they'll add ads to this?"). http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes.shtml
So, an example of where they DO have ads in front, see this:
http://www.nbc.com/Bionic_Woman/video/#cat=new
Ahh. Yes. Much like I thought I'd see with The Office. Whoever is running that part of the website. Thank you. For the bionic women, I might say I missed the front part of the Bionic woman clip because I didn't want to see the Mazda commercial. (Sorry Mazda). I guess you could say that I personally DISDAIN ads in the front of my video. For the same reason I stopped watching AMC and switched to Turner. Go figure. Moving on...
4. Pop-up ads during the video. This is a strategy being utilized by Google. It reminds me of watching a show and having people walk across the television screen from an upcoming show. It is annoying, and definitely more interactive than passive, as you can click to view the ad, but you're going to see the transparent part of the ad regardless. In addition, the ad is in the middle of the clip, meaning that the ad becomes more VIRAL, as you pass the video around, everyone sees the ad. Last, this ad strategy is being auditioned by Google, who owns You Tube.
According to Regalix, "The overlay ad strategy is not new but the massive popularity of YouTube will certainly give Google an unfair competitive advantage and turn the format into an industry standard, especially for short video content.
Whether the other major video content providers like MySpace, AOL & Yahoo follow suit, remains to be seen. As the proliferation and popularity of user generated content or viewer created content increases, online video advertising seems to be coming of age at the right time." (source: http://www.Regalix.com).
Hmm. I wish the people at Google watched The Office. But, you can't sell thin air, now, can you? Thinking back to when a friend came back from Jamaica with a can of "Fresh Jamaica Sunshine" it dawns on me that, even though it may be a gag, you CAN sell thin air. Just as long as you wrap it in a funny jar, can, or other wrapping.
5. Ads after the video or at the end of the video. This is a strategy being utilized by i-Justine, a self-proclaimed "lifecaster" who has developed a skill at both directing, producting, and starring in personal video's aimed at humor, spoofs, and technology (most notably, Apple). She hit it big with over 1,000,000 views with her "First Apple i-Phone bill in a box" video. I noticed in that video she placed an image to "save a tree" at the end of her video, clearly utilizing an add at the end of the video as a method to capture your attention and hopefully act accordingly.
Another example of "ad contained in the end" is by Human Flipbook (http://www.humanflipbook.com), who created a complete flip book video using t-shirts: http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1191601&fr=&cache=1. This video was, without a doubt, one of the more innovative and viral campaigns I've seen from a SANDWICH SHOP online! Nice.
I actually find this model of advertising to be the friendliest, least obtrusive, because I have the right to click away to something else or click on the ad, and the ad didn't hold my eyeballs hostage either before the video or during the video. I clicked on both the sites at the end. However, that's user experience. It is possible that the ads for video may follow a similar pattern for Google AdSense ads, whereas a certain percentage will hit an add in front, another percentage will hit the ads next to the video, another percentage will click ads in the middle, and another percentage in the end.
We'll have to run a test on this and report back to you when we have more data as to which type of ad is most effective.
In the meantime, I'd suggest the following: "Do unto others as you wish it done unto you." If you want people putting ads in the front of their videos, put ads in the front of yours.
