Blogs can persuade the public, but can they make money? - Washington Business Journal:

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Before you quit your day job in pursuit of onlin e fameand fortune, know a few factw about what it takexs to run a blog. Don’tf expect to make any quick Blogging takes a considerable amount of timeand resources. In you will need to keep the content freshy and constantly marketthe site. In other it is just like starting anyother business. But the barrierds to entry are considerablylower than, say, opening a which requires tens of thousands of dollars. And as the numbe r of bloggerskeeps growing, advertisers are catchinb on. Blogs that are specialized allowa advertisers to reach theirtargetg audience.
Bloggers whose sites attract morethan 100,00o unique visitors a month earn $75,00p0 a year on average, according to Technoratu Inc., a San Francisco company that collects data on blogs. The averages U.S. blogger, however, pulls in just $5,060 a year. Many new bloggers count on their savingss ortheir spouse’s job to pay the bills. But low pay has not stoppeed folks from enteringthe blogosphere. There are 452,00o0 bloggers in the U.S, according to the Department of Thatis 58,000 more than the number of computee programmers. One advantage of blogs is that they offere the ability for readers topost comments. That means readers are engaged something thatattracts advertisers.
“I pushes the brand even further and gets people to talk abouty itamongst themselves,” says Chris digital media manager for Media Works Ltd. in Owingsx Mills, Md. “That’s the powerfulp things about blogs andsocialk networks.” Perhaps one of the region’s most successfu l blogs is TVNewser.com, started by Brian Stelter while a studenft at Towson University. The cable news industry blog was pickeds upby Mediabistro.com in 2006 and got Stelter a stafff job at The . But not everyonw is so lucky. At least not yet. Take, for Fern Shen. The former brew.com. Her blog boasts an impressivre listof correspondents, including former writer Rafael Alvarez.
But neither the site nor the contributoras are makingany money, Shen She is giving free ad space to the Wine Markeyt and additional advertisers in hopes that others will join and pay. But Shen believexs the site will makemoney someday. She is talkingv to an investor, whom she declined to and hopes the site will pick up traffic after a mentiob from online journalismsite Romanesko.com. “With the collapsee of the newspaper, everyone is trying to figur e out a business andI don’t pretend to have one,” Shen The difficulty with blogging is that most journalistxs are not entrepreneurs by nature.
“We’re used to gettingf a story; we’re not used to getting the businesw side,” says Stephen Janis. The formedr Baltimore Examiner investigativereporter co-founded Investigativevoice.com shortlgy after the daily newspaper closed in February. You have to decidse if you have the mentality ofan entrepreneur, Janix says, and if not, do you know someoned who does? Janis constantly promotes his site with appearances on the “Eed Norris Show” and Fox 45.