Trading A Stethoscope For A Blog

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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Guy Kawasaki discusses Alltop.com on ARRiiVE Radio

Guy Kawasaki, Author, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, discusses his new website "Alltop.com" on the ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business Show this week. This show promises to be highly informative and entertaining, so mark your calendar!

Show Time: May 7, 2008 2:00PM PST / 5:00 PM EST

Join in: Dial (724) 444-7444 Enter 37798 #Enter: 1 # or your Talkshoe PIN

To join from your computer (with LIVE CHAT)or listen after the show, visit: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/37798

Notes: Join Scott, as he interviews Guy Kawasaki, former evangelist for the Macintosh Computer, and an author of many books, including The Art of the Start, a book ARRiiVE recommends highly. Hundreds of thousands of people follow and read Guy's blog (Google Page Rank PR7) and through his company, Nononina, he recently launched two powerful websites, Truemors and Alltop.

Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

You won't want to miss this dynamic, educational, and fun guest.

Call in to join the show:Dial (724) 444-7444 Enter 37798 #Enter: 1 # or your Talkshoe PIN

To join from your computer (with LIVE CHAT)or listen after the show, visit: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/37798

It's SIMPLE and EASY! See you (or hear you) there...
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Apple i-Reader Competes with Amazon Kindle

I posted this article yesterday about Amazon Kindle being a better way to read: http://arriive.blogspot.com/2008/03/amazon-kindle-better-way-to-read.html

Of course, that is if you can actually GET one! They're backordered and a bit hard to obtain right now. Anyway, that article provoked a question about the source of my information on the Apple i-Reader.

You'll find my reply to Gordon's comment in that email trail, but in case you missed that, I felt it worthy enough to publish a post about it here under the title: Apple iReader competes with Amazon Kindle. Now, to be honest, there is, as of yet, no such device that we know of to emerge from Apple's Area 51 lab of startlingly new products that wow and dazzle the Mac faithful that Apple has actually NAMED the iREADER.

However, there is a device which COULD be used as a reader. I know, some of the more geeky among my readers will point out that the iPOD could be used as a reader. However, there's a problem with that: the small screen of most iPODs.

The solution? The iPhone. Read my comment trail from yesterday's article to see how I've come to this conclusion:

I'll dig through several sources on this matter and clarify to help settle the issue of the iREADER:

1) GeekWhat - http://geekwhat.com/2007/03/31/apple-ireader-due-in-july/ - this source commented July - however, that was LAST July (07). So, maybe if this device is truly being jointly developed through Amazon, Google, and Apple.

Considering he missed his deadline, and considering the proximity of his blog post to April Fool's Day, I believe other sources are required.

2) Fake Steve Jobs. http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/fake-steve-jobs-options-review.ars. Alright. This one really is a reach. But, think about it: if Fake Steve Jobs could be printed as a book, why not a DRM-protected book on an iReader? Makes sense, especially at the market-ready $499 (and $699 with the memory capacity you'd really want, right?). It sounded so real hearing fake Steve Jobs describe the new iReader I could hardly help myself.

3. Engadget reprinted the Robert Scoble story. You mean, it WAS an April Fool's joke. Awww sheesh.

4. iAudioize (http://www.gearlog.com/2007/03/turn_the_ipod_into_an_ireader.php) offers this super-cool software that turns your PDF's and other docs and allows you to HEAR them from your iPOD. How cool is that? For anyone with a commute, this is BETTER than an iREADER. This is actually the product I've been looking for, so I'm excited about this route...however, this post does not ratify the Apple iReader, either.

5.Engadget speculation (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/16/if-jobs-says-people-dont-read-anymore-does-this-headline-rea/comments/9882721/). Again, Engadget enthusiasts are speculating that Apple has some secret "Area-51" like lab where guys in white jackets are design this dream iReader device for us. Can you blame them? Just watch the video (above) and you'll see that the "Amazon Kindle" is *not* exactly what you'd call "SEX-AY".

6. Figuring maybe Apple might want to weigh in (ehem, cough) we all know how "open" Apple likes to be (yeah, right, about as open as a Raiders training camp), I figured I'd google Apple and even CALL Apple to see if they'd comment. After google, and the phone call, my kind redirects sent me to the iPHONE or the iPOD, with the iPHONE being the most dominant suggestion. Hey, there's an idea. Maybe we can use an iREADER on an iPHONE or iPOD. Makes sense to me. Maybe there really isn't a need for a unique Apple iREADER after all!

This quote from David Pogue of the NY times just came out YESTERDAY on the topic of Apple SDK (native software for iPHONE): The move will turn iPhone into “an engineering tool, a game console, a free-calls Skype phone, a business tool, a dating service, an e-book reader, a chat room, a database, an Etch-a-Sketch,” and, Pogue predicts “a gigantic success.” What's behind this? A lot. Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers has announced an iFund of $100,000,000 for iPhone Software Development. That's serious money, folks. (see; http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/)

Over 100,000 developers downloaded the SDK platform for the iPhone in the first 4 days.

That's buzz. I'm quite certain there will be RSS readers, of various sorts, in that mix, for sure.And, there's already applications just announced this week that are allowing RSS transfer without even synching to iTunes, at least for podcasts and videos. (http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/2008/03/05/iphonetouch-rss-converter/)

So, there you have it. The iREADER already exists. It's called the iPHONE.

Surprise!

P.S. - For those of you who are more geeked-up than me, who already have been downloading RSS feeds with your iPOD (http://www.engadget.com/2004/04/16/pts-how-to-fridays-read-rss-feeds-on-your-ipod/) well, what can I say, if you enjoy reading my blog on a 2" x 1" screen, kudos to you... or your eyeballs!
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Amazon Kindle: A Better Way To Read?

Are you seeking better ways to download your favorite blogs, e-books and things of this nature?
I am. And, particularly, I've been really curious about Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't come out with an i-Reader or something like that which would blow Amazon away. But, as it turns out, Apple IS coming out with an i-Reader in July... so stay tuned on that one (I'll review it after it comes out)!

Anyway, if you're interested in downloading AspireNow's own e-books, you can do that, but now you can read them with the Amazon Kindle!

What's great about Amazon's Kindle? Take it on the subway, take it in your car, take it to bed. Whatever is convenient for you. It doesn't run as hot as a laptop computer, plus, it's more convenient to hold in your hand and just scroll through your document, which is what you'll do, anyway. If you're a gadget geek, Amazon Kindle is for you. If you want to learn more about the Amazon Kindle, here's an interesting (and clearly unbiased review):

Although the Amazon Kindle has been backordered quite a bit since release, I do offer it through the AspireNow Amazon Store:

http://astore.amazon.com/aspirenow-20/detail/B000FI73MA/002-1778283-8772807

There's also a list of groovy accessories there, too:http://astore.amazon.com/aspirenow-20/002-1778283-8772807?node=6&page=3

Let me know how the Amazon Kindle works for you. I'll be reviewing the i-Reader once it hits the shelves, too. One concern I have is that the Amazon Kindle is outside of Amazon's product focus. Instead of selling other people's products, they're trying to sell their own. That can be risky. Ultimately, I predict this product category may indeed shift to Sony and Apple. But, in the near term, Amazon Kindle is definitely something to check out.
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Copyright © 1999-2008 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. SUBSCRIBE.

A New Social Website

Have you heard the term Web Democracy?

I heard Guy Kawasaki, the former evangelist for Apple Computer, mention his new baby, Truemors, and he called it "Democratizing the Web". I'd not heard of that expression, so I checked it out. At first, yet another social networking site. But I had to dig deeper. Basically, I see Truemors as being kind of like Digg, but more social (not just tech/geekspeak). You can become a Truemors blogger or journalist through their system, and thus then become a contributing member of their system. I'd consider Truemors a new type of social website.

Guy built Truemors with very little investment other than lots of time and staking his name on it. Initially, he received some negative press. However, I'll point out that press garnered over 300,000 page views within ELEVEN days! I wouldn't mind negative press that send that many visitors to ARRiiVE, because I'm sure most of those visitors left feeling like Truemors has a voice and a place on the Web to accomplish their vision: democratizing the web.

The idea is to share information, and to share it freely, across multiple categories. "But, isn't that what we're already DOING on the web?" you might ask. Well, yes, and no. When I dug deeper into what is going on with Truemors, I think it is more about the QUALITY of content than mass sharing of content. During the initial launch, there were 450 posts. Of those, roughly half got deleted for being "crap" posts.

I can't blame Guy for that, at all. In moderating a group on Advanced Collaboration at Plaxo, I have found that roughly 50% of all posts into the group are either non-related, unfocused blogshares, or spam. In other words, crap. I've been criticized for moderating my group at Plaxo, but my point is this: what value is a group when posts are filled with UCE, SPAM, poorly written messages, and other crap? Wouldn't you rather have a group moderated for high-quality content? To which, I'm now starting to get some kudos and applause from the group. My hope is that other members will join me in helping moderate the contributions to the Advanced Collaboration group in a positive manner. My own goal in creating Advanced Collaboration was to build a collective platform to contribute, gain ideas, and eventually promote what I'm working on over at Semantic Collaboration.

Although Truemors claims to be unmoderated, the truth is that Truemors is HIGHLY moderated. In order for Truemors to claim quality, they have to be. I, for my part, think that Truemors may succeed. I feel the same curiosity around it as I did when Steve Jobs invested in Pixar. And, we all ought to know how that ended up for Steve (Pixar was purchased by Disney for $7.4 Billion). That's a cool $3.7 Billion dollars in value for Steve Jobs. Not bad, huh?

Not only that, but he gained a seat on Disney's board, which means he can steer future direction of that stock's performance, too, and gain leverage to integrate more Apple-related solutions into Disney, which will help Apple's performance, too. Now, how will this pan out for Kawasaki? My gut tells me that he'll sell it when he feels it reaches such a critical success that someone larger, like Time Warner, might come in and purchase it for billions.

I'm still learning about Truemors but my initial impression is that this site advanced social websites with a more intellectual bent, an "NPR for the eyes," as Guy calls it.

Kudos to you, Guy. Please keep me informed as to how it goes. Heck, I might even post a little there, myself.
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Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.

ARRiiVE Business Solutions helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939.

Copyright © 2007 ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. Truemors is Copyright © 2007 Nononina, Inc. ARRiiVE Semantic Collaboration, Apple, Pixar, Time Warner, and Guy Kawasaki are trademarks of their respective owners. No infringement intended. You may republish this article only if you publish in WHOLE with the COPYRIGHT and ALL ACTIVE LINKS intact.

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