The Blogosphere - Following the Money

Day 4 of the Technorati State of the Blogosphere dawns, and we can finally follow the money. (See earlier articles on Technorati blogonomics here and here). So, what can we glean:

Firstly, about half of the blogosphere (46%) don't use Ads. Of those that do, most (28% out of 54% who use Ads) use 3 Ad methods or more (Search 38%, Display 30% and Referrals 20%) As you'd expect, most (69% ) use Pay Per Click Ads, but (35%) use referrals and 19% negotiate deals directly. Most who don't advertise feel its because they either don't want the hassle and/or the site cluttered, and the most of the rest don't think they don't have enough traffic.

But what you really wanted to know about is the money, I'm sure

This is the money-shot slide:



Look at the European vs US revenues - you would have thought the US would have higher earning blogs, given people like Shiny Media's travails vs the clear funding offerings the US blogs have received. Its doubly surprising given the CPMs:



European blogs get, on average 80% higher revenues with 75% of the CPM rate, that implies nearly double the traffic. The Median also implies double the traffic....hmmm

And the typical pro-blogger profile - a top 10% blogger earns $19k pa, is likely to be professional, and many (c 2x) more are self employed than employed. The typical output is vc 80 posts a month, c half blogging over 10 hours a week (a lot more to get 80 posts methinks) and investing $7.5k, for a return of c $11.5k - so just under $1k a month.