Monday, May 19, 2008

Digital Life Feature on Bloggers and Ad Revenues



So surprised to see my own picture on the front page of the Straits Times today! I knew that there would be a feature in Digital Life, but I wasn't expecting that they would put my photo on the front page!

I thought that the article was a little overly optimistic about portraying blogging as a revenue generating engine. Certainly, a few of the top bloggers in Singapore are blogging professionally, but for many of us, blogging is a simply an enjoyable hobby. Yes, the ads do earn a few dollars but certainly not enough to pay for the food that I blog and certainly not for the petrol cost.



They made a few mistakes with my blog which I wish to clarify. In the article, they said that Advertisers include Biblegateway.com and Sgflyerking.com. Firstly, the daily verses that you see at the bottom of the blog is not revenue generating. It is simply there to remind me that "Man does not live on bread (or Chicken Rice) alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (italics - mine). Secondly, I have no association with Sgflyerking whatsoever except that it might have appeared once on Google Adsense.

When they asked me how much I earned from the ads, I told them that after a year and a half of blogging, I still haven't earned enough from the Google Ads to buy a new Laptop. But unfortunately, that was not what was conveyed. I feel that blogs are only just being recognized as a platform for advertising, so potential advertisers are still unsure about whether to take the plunge. Furthermore, to put an ad in the blogs, they have to deal with individuals and not professionals so there is no widely accepted practice or price range in order to go about doing this. So as a result, it is still not easy to attract companies to put ads on blogs.



This is why I support the local ad agencies such as Nuffnang who are trying establish a local industry standard for blogs. But I think the future looks bright for bloggers and at the rate things are going, I am hopeful that one day I might be able to make the hobby pay for itself and perhaps be able to buy me some new camera equipment and a new Laptop (I am working on a laptop with only a 20GB harddrive and whose battery is completely dead - any company out there would like to sponsor?)

So if you are thinking of making a career out of blogging, make sure you have a good backup plan first.

13 comments:

Indigo said...

Thanks for the clarifications, Leslie. Thought it was quite out of character for you to refuse to reveal your earnings from blogging. That would only fuel speculation that you're making a bundle from your blogging and so want to keep it secret.

Then again, if you are able to make a bundle from your hobby, there's nothing to say you shouldn't.

Only hope that you'll have more activities geared towards charity. Cheers~

jems said...

Les, do you already start seeing people staring at you wherever you go lately? :)

khim said...

did u really see plastic girl??

khim said...

was surprised xiaxue wasn't inside?!

Anonymous said...

I'm skeptical of what those other bloggers are claiming to earn. The Singapore market is very small and not everyone clicks on an ad. 1,000 visitors a day is not enough to earn you more than $1K a month.

ieat said...

Even with around 3500-4000 unique visitors, which is what this blog gets, I am only getting a small fraction of that from google. So yes, I agree with you.

jems said...

Ya. maybe they wanna make their blog sound more popular than it really is to entice more advertisers? if can earn so much then xiaxue should be earning more than $10K a month man....

sumosumo said...

i dont know whats with the popularity of xx?? her online persona is crass, obnoxious, self centred etc etc..

and one of singapore;s top bloggers....

i m surprised.

Anonymous said...

Its very common for these (SPH) reporters and journalists to misquote or take the subject matter out of context from an interview.

Just ask anybody you know whom has been interviewed by the local press before and most of them will tell you that what is published does not entirely match what they had answered when questioned/interviewed.

Whether they were genuine mistakes or accidental, its for you to believe. But too many "accidents" makes it merely too coincidental.

I doubt the bloggers actually revealed that they made a 4 figure income from their monthly endorsements.

Go figure.

-ahber

Anonymous said...

SS

What's wrong with XX? How abt u for make such a comment?
Is it sama sama, same same too?

If XX so bad, why got popularity? Must got some goodness mah.

Blur Ting said...

Thanks for waking me up. I was about to quit my job and go full time blogging :-)

carebear said...

Hi Leslie, dun wori about the comments regarding money making blog. Those of us who have our own blog and post for the sake of our passion for our blog know that the revenue we get from the blog is only peanuts, maybe only enuf to cover our broadband subscription!

ladyironchef said...

Hello Leslie,

glad that you put up this article, my friend told me about it but i didn't manage to catch that copy that day.

Famous foodie leslie tay. hahahah! anyway its good that you are getting some revenue from the ads,

the thing people don't understand that we spent so much on the food, that the revenue in isn't really enough to cover mayb even the desserts. LOL!

Cheers
Brad

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