Interesting discussion between Alan Meckler of Jupiter Media and Jason Calacanis at the Wall Street Journal. The truth, of course, is some where in between. Meckler is right when he says 99.99% of bloggers aren’t going to make any serious money, but lets consider the fact that even if 0.01% are, that’s roughly 20,000 people out there who are going to make serious money from blogging. Then look at the long tale. Say if only 1% can make what Meckler refers to as candy bar money (they must have expensive candy bars in the states when he’s talking $1-3k US a month), you are talking 2,000,000 people. Lets take the long tail even further out to real candy bar money. Say $10 a month. I’m yet to meet anyone with advertising on their site but can’t bring in $10 per month (US) if they are trying. Say in theory 25% of all bloggers run ads on their sites, Adsense or something similar, thats 50 million people bringing in $10 a month. $500 million going into the economy by blogging alone in the long tail.
Of course to some extent I’m generalising on the figures. Calacanis naturally defends blogging, Meckler takes the piss in terms of the numbers, but when you are looking at something so amazing big as the blogosphere, even small percentages can equate to some amazing figures, and hence, the truth lies in between what both men are saying….if you know what I mean.
Maybe it’s time to go back to earning some more candy bars now 🙂
