It logs the money
Op-Ed: Blogs are the jack-of-all-trades of online journalism, says Nick Lüthi.
Guest commentary Weblogs are the egg-laying woolly mammals of Internet journalism, says Nick Lüthi. 10185 dollars were in Christopher Albritton's account a few days ago; today it will be a few greenbacks more. The money comes from donors who financially support the former AP reporter in his independent reporting from Iraq. A considerable sum, considering that Albritton only publishes his research via back-to-iraq.com - an online journal that is freely accessible to everyone. Other web journalists have also reported that strangers financed a new laptop for them within days. The booming online media format of the weblog can also be used to earn money.
Inspired by the example of Albritton, more and more
blog operators to convert their hobby into cash. The PayPal buttons on many weblogs are a clear indication of this. The credit card-based payment service makes it easy to transfer money. However, technical feasibility alone does not get the money rolling. Only a high number of hits and a good journalistic reputation can trigger a flow of donations.
The same applies to advertising programs such as Google Adsense, which are increasingly being embedded in blogs: The cash register only rings when text ads are clicked on. Even a top weblog like Editor:Myself only earns a meagre five dollars a month this way, according to its operator. That's just enough to cover the rent for the server space.
This sobering result should not lead to the hasty conclusion that weblogs have a basic anti-commercial resistance and that their operators can expect at most mild gifts.
The hare runs differently. A weblog is primarily a purpose-neutral and web-supported editorial software system. What can be done with it commercially is hardly foreseeable. The first to benefit from the current boom are, of course, weblog providers. They develop, maintain and sell the tools without which nothing works. However, those who are particularly in need at the moment can obviously also benefit.
Why else did the online strategists at Tages-Anzeiger, Die Zeit or La Repubblica decide to integrate weblogs into their media's Internet presence (the Italians have eight of them!)? Hardly just because it's hip. The fact is: with this step, the newspapers mentioned are killing two birds with one stone. Firstly, weblogs increase the attractiveness of the journalistic offering: exclusive online content as a differentiation from the omnipresent agency fodder. Secondly, weblogs are highly interconnected. It is not for nothing that they are referred to as a "blogosphere". However, it is far more likely to refer to a newspaper's weblog than to the rest of its online content. The weblog therefore acts as a kind of link magnet. And more links bring more traffic, which in turn brings higher advertising revenue. For this obvious reason, it is reported that a number of Swiss newspapers will soon follow the example of the Tages-Anzeiger with its "correspondent notebook" and install weblogs on their websites.
> Nick Lüthi is an editor at eBund and writes in the
Weblogs bernergazette.ch and nick.kaywa.com.
Inspired by the example of Albritton, more and more
blog operators to convert their hobby into cash. The PayPal buttons on many weblogs are a clear indication of this. The credit card-based payment service makes it easy to transfer money. However, technical feasibility alone does not get the money rolling. Only a high number of hits and a good journalistic reputation can trigger a flow of donations.
The same applies to advertising programs such as Google Adsense, which are increasingly being embedded in blogs: The cash register only rings when text ads are clicked on. Even a top weblog like Editor:Myself only earns a meagre five dollars a month this way, according to its operator. That's just enough to cover the rent for the server space.
This sobering result should not lead to the hasty conclusion that weblogs have a basic anti-commercial resistance and that their operators can expect at most mild gifts.
The hare runs differently. A weblog is primarily a purpose-neutral and web-supported editorial software system. What can be done with it commercially is hardly foreseeable. The first to benefit from the current boom are, of course, weblog providers. They develop, maintain and sell the tools without which nothing works. However, those who are particularly in need at the moment can obviously also benefit.
Why else did the online strategists at Tages-Anzeiger, Die Zeit or La Repubblica decide to integrate weblogs into their media's Internet presence (the Italians have eight of them!)? Hardly just because it's hip. The fact is: with this step, the newspapers mentioned are killing two birds with one stone. Firstly, weblogs increase the attractiveness of the journalistic offering: exclusive online content as a differentiation from the omnipresent agency fodder. Secondly, weblogs are highly interconnected. It is not for nothing that they are referred to as a "blogosphere". However, it is far more likely to refer to a newspaper's weblog than to the rest of its online content. The weblog therefore acts as a kind of link magnet. And more links bring more traffic, which in turn brings higher advertising revenue. For this obvious reason, it is reported that a number of Swiss newspapers will soon follow the example of the Tages-Anzeiger with its "correspondent notebook" and install weblogs on their websites.
> Nick Lüthi is an editor at eBund and writes in the
Weblogs bernergazette.ch and nick.kaywa.com.
