Despite all the horrendous stories of newspaper layoffs, near bankruptcies, and even
"bailout plans for journalists," there's some silver lining in the media world: blogging is blooming into a profitable financial and publishing enterprise for at least a few.
The Huffington Post, which had
4.5 million unique visitors in September, just
landed $25 million of new funding. It plans
focused acquisitions, and currently has a valuation of $100 million.
TPM Media, founded by
Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall, which has about a dozen employees,
is hoping to expand in 2009 through micro-targeted advertising.
And despite the decline of traditional newspaper advertising revenue -- down by
at least 11 percent from 2007 to 2008 -- online interactive advertising is projected to grow in 2009, with
spending increasing by as much as 15%.
To build an online publishing business that's self-sustaining for just one person from online advertising, one commentator
at the Media Shift blog estimated that "100,000 monthly uniques (or about 3,300 daily uniques) as the tipping point where a blog or site can start generating livable income."
Not only that, but blogging may have spiritual rewards that other forms of journalism do not, says Arianna Huffington. She writes in
"The Meltdown Will Be Blogged": "Blogging is all about connecting to others. The bond between blogger and reader creates an intimacy that is a much-needed corrective to the
isolation that hard times bring. I'm always amazed by the things I learn from commenters I've never met but feel that I know. And I'm equally amazed by the things I keep discovering about myself in the
course of writing and clarifying what's important to me.
Andrew Sullivan fleshes this experience out in a terrific essay in the
Atlantic called "
Why I Blog."
"Alone in front of a computer, at any moment, are two people: a blogger
and a reader," he writes. "The proximity is palpable, the moment human
-- whatever authority a blogger has is derived not from the institution
he works for but from the humanness he conveys. This is writing with
emotion not just under but always breaking through the surface. It
renders a writer and a reader not just connected but linked in a
visceral, personal way. The only term that really describes this is
friendship. And it is a relatively new thing to write for thousands and
thousands of friends."
Read Arianna's essay. Meanwhile, Sullivan quotes a reader who says yeah, when a blogger she read (but had never met or even seen in the mainstream media) passed away, it was
like losing a friend.
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Arianna Huffington, Fearrington, Huffington Post