A good working definition of a blog is simply a journal or newsletter that is frequently updated and intended for the timely reading.
It often provides opportunities for unfiltered and immediate feedback, sports an informal or even partisan attitude, and is written in a more personal style than traditional press outlets.
Blogs come in all shapes and subjects, from the maunderings of troubled teen souls to displays of classical photography to breaking news and commentary.
They can be online journals, locked with a password shared by a few trusted friends, or they can be page after page of source code, sharing useful and free computer programs with the world.
A blog may be an online journal tangential to a company’s main business, where users of a company’s products give feedback and ask for help. Blogs can be hosted by single individuals, shared by teams, or produced by entire companies.
They may be hosted on a dedicated blog server using fancy templates or lovingly hand-crafted in HTML on a page that resembles a bulletin board.
But a blog is not simply a syndicated column or a newspaper that is online. Many news outlets feature their content online and even allow readers to respond to stories.
However, the newspaper’s business does not change just because it has a new medium. Editors and writers still do the same jobs they did before the advent of online distribution; the newspaper does not view itself as any different from what it always was.
And perhaps therein lies the difference: attitude.
The newspaper sees itself as presenting all the news that’s fit to print, written by objective professionals, while the blogger sees himself as presenting a piece of his own world and his own expertise from his own perspective.
As blogs become more popular, more columnists are becoming bloggers and more bloggers are becoming professional in what they write. Perhaps in a few years, the distinction between the Old Media and the New will be irrelevant in the mind of writers; for many readers today, it already is.
The number of individual blogs has topped 20 million and readership is exploding.
In fact, the trade magazine Ad Age reports that during 2005 alone, American workers will spend the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs, rumor sheets, and online diaries.
Hundreds of millions of readers worldwide get their news and entertainment from these independent sources, supporting their favorite bloggers through donations, link usage, and purchase of blog-related memorabilia.
A Blog Is And Is Not
Introduction To Blogging For Money
Blogging has become one of the most powerful economical forces on the Internet today. Thousands of speedy hands have taken to entering content into blog fields as a way to earn income or write about their life experiences. From its early beginnings with sites like livejournal, blogging for money has become the latest craze. Today, the more popular blogs like jossip.com and perezhilton generate close to a million dollars each year worth of advertising revenue. Blogging for money can certainly yield this result with tremendous work!
Webmasters can make extra money blogging through advertising programs, sponsorships, affiliate programs, merchandising, Adsense, and more. Advertising options for those making money through blogs have been skyrocketing over the past year with the most popular method through contextual ad programs like Adsense that pay-per-click. With targeted ads that reflect your blogs content, consumers are more apt to click. Create a blog with higher paying “keyword ads” ($1.00 a click is common!) and lots of traffic and an extra thousand can be made every month!
Discovering income from home blogs also means signing up for affiliate programs. Programs like Commission Junction, Amazon, and Clickbank pair you up with companies who pay commissions for sales through your blogs’ banner ad leads. These products may include soaps, clothing, computer products, and more. All bloggers have complete control over the type of ads appearing on their sites. A third way to make money online blogging is through sponsorships. Highly regarded blogs with thousands of visitors every month can be acclaimed by companies looking to sponsor the blog for advertising space. Although it takes hard work to reach the top, money making opportunities are endless. Remember, there is more room at the top than there is at the bottom!
Finally, making money through blogs may mean creating other digital assets to sale to act as secondary income streams. Your blog may complement an e-book or course you’re selling and may double up as a discussion board to retain clients. In addition, bloggers can advertise freely on their sites. Monetizing blogs can happen in many different ways. Many freelance writers find themselves hired by bloggers to come up with dynamic content for their journals. This content serves as sales pitches to the contextual ads that may appear on the site, benefiting both the blogger and the “hired gun.”
To start blogging for money, type in blog into any Google search. If you want blogs to pay you instead of launching your own operation, you can do that too. Blogging is an excellent way to earn that side cash. With a little perseverance, you might find your site alongside mega blogs like perezhilton.com and celebslam.com.
