Bloggers, making money is not a crime
Written on 27th October 2008
11 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last Friday, Amsterdam was the scene of Holland’s first international blog conference BLOG08. Pete Cashmore (Mashable), Loren Feldman (1938media.com), Hugh MacLeod (Gapingvoid), and Scott Rafer (Lookery) all crossed the ocean to tell the European crowd how they could turn their blog in a successful one. Two of them, namely Cashmore and Rafer, focused on monetizing blogs.
Nobody wants money?
When the Mashable founder asked the crowd about monetizing, something noteworthy occurred. Anne Helmond reports:
When asked, hardly anyone in the room actually wants to monetize its blog. Pete is kind of surprised, especially if he asks the same question in the US where everyone raises their hands.
Language barriers
At first, I wasn’t really surprised. After all, most BLOG08 attendees report for a rather small group compared to bloggers who write in English. A Dutch blogger for example, only has an audience of 17 million people. Americans have a crowd of at least 300 million readers at their disposal.
What did struck me as odd was the reluctant attitude of most visitors towards money. Like it’s some kind of crime.
More revenue means more time for blogging
I’ve been blogging for a year before I made some money out of it. And ever since I started doing that, my blogging skills improved. More revenue means more time for blogging. I was able to quit my sorry day job and spend more time on reporting about tech.
A precondition on making some money with blogging is writing in English. Simply because you can reach a larger crowd. That’s not something I came up with. No, one of Holland’s most remarkable journalists, Nico Haasbroek, once told me that.
Write your articles in English, German, or French, so you can sell them to any magazine or newspaper.
Content producers should not be involved with advertising
Sure, my English isn’t perfect yet. But thanks to the euros earned, I can soon start following some English lessons. While I’m doing that, I keep another rather important lesson in mind. As read in Michael A. Banks’ Blogging Heroes, stated by Ken Fisher from Ars Technica:
Content producers should not be involved with advertising, to avoid even the appearance of advertised-influenced content.
So, work your ass off, create great content, and find an advertising partner like Federated Media as soon as you can make money out of your blog.
[Photo credit: Floris Dekker]
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
By Joop on Oct 27, 2008
Americans have a crowd of at least 300 million readers at their disposal. -> US is nice but there are 1.5 foreigners that also understand English. Liable readers for your blog! Don’t know how many are actually on the web, but its probably an amazing amount of people.
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By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Oct 27, 2008
I had my hand up but I was in a dark corner working on a blog post so nobody saw me raise my left hand while I kept typing with my right hand. Really!
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By Jorg on Oct 27, 2008
Nice post Ernst-Jan and Blog08 was definitely a success. Kudos for you and Edial.
Regarding Pete’s question about monetizing and the reaction of the crowd; I think it addressed the way of directly monetizing your personal blog through advertisements and such. What was underexposed in the whole ‘monetize!’ discussion was the aspect of indirect conversion through blogging. Something that is in the end one of the main goals for corporate/business blogs.
Improving relationships with your crowd, giving your company a human voice, positioning yourself regarding competitors, strengthen authority, better positions on a wider range of keywords in Google.. all these benefits that can be achieved through corporate blogging will in the end deliver more sales. Note: when your product or customer care sucks, above goals are not anywhere near achievable. Then blogging will bite you in the ass, hard.
So through transparency (Loren Feldman would scream now that I am lying my ass off here) or maybe even more basic: through conversation (listening and talking, two way) you can win the crowd for you making them fans of you and your product. And when you’re good at this you are monetizing your blog.
Note: One of our site is Weekendjeweg.nl and I see in my personal blog statistics a lot of people googling on ‘ervaringen weekendjeweg.nl’ [translated: experiences weekendjeweg.nl] and other searches that indicate people want to see more about the people behind a website before they buy there. A blog is a way to add one more and maybe the definite argument in their frame of reference, why they should choose us and not someone else.
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By Mathys on Oct 27, 2008
check some of the attendees photos on:
http://mobypicture.com/?blog08
And Boris thanks for the invite…
I had a good time
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By Natasha Cloutier on Oct 27, 2008
Amen for writing in English! It was a great conference.
Whenever a non-Dutch person like myself (Canadian) mentions blogging in English, people get either defensive, insulted or jealous. Actually, with the US, Canada and the UK, you’re looking at 381 million. Add Australia, New Zealand, etc. and everyone else who understands English and you’ll see why bloging in Dutch is more of a liability for most Dutch bloggers unless your target audience is Dutch.
And remember, Clo Willaerts of Sanoma Magazines told us at Blog08 that the Flemish blog in English mostly. Maybe they actually want to make money.
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By Justin Baker on Oct 27, 2008
Great event, lots to think about and I’m sure everyone who attended will improve their game as a result. We did our own quick review at http://blog.mippin.com and thought I’d also mention that mobile should be considered an option when thinking about making money from blogging. I mentioned it on the day but thought i’d take the liberty of including our URL once more – http://www.mippin.com/mobilizer – thanks again for the Dutch hospitality.
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By Natasha Cloutier on Oct 27, 2008
BTW this sentence is a total disaster:
“Write your articles in English, Geman, or France, so you can sell them to any magazine or newspaper.”
Try English, German and French :)
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haha corrected, sorry about that!
Have you noticed the new Goosegrade buttons by the way? Crowd-sourcing copy-editing
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I’ll have to try it ou!
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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on Oct 27, 2008
Thanks for the positive feedback guys! To be honest with you, I was expecting some rather harsh critics on this post – since it concerns making money and all that.
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By erwin blom on Oct 27, 2008
“Content producers should not be involved with advertising, to avoid even the appearance of advertised-influenced content.”
This sounds like old skool journalism! I think they should be involved! Take for example the advertisment spots at 37 Signals, only good products (products the 37 Signal people use themselves) are allowed to advertise / sponsor. The better the combination of content and advertisements the better the site!
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