But I think in reality today blogging is just another delivery mechanism. Some blogs will indeed be people’s pet projects and they will not want – or need – to try and make money from them directly or indirectly. For others – like you and me Dennis – they also help to drive revenue directly or indirectly.

I think it’s absolutely fair enough that a blog should generate revenue – after all you are putting in the work to write it, moderate comments and so on. Ultimately it is down to your blog’s readers whether they choose to visit the blog, and if they do whether to use any of your other services that may have a fee attached.

In my case, since I am attached to a publishing house and am a full-time journo rather than a freelancer like yourself, the dynamic is slightly different. My blog does drive some additional traffic and traffic helps sell advertising on the site. But while this benefits the company directly it only benefits me indirectly (since they’re my employer).

Where it does benefit me directly though is in raising my own profile a little, enabling me to say some things that perhaps would be less suited to the enterprise IT magazine that I work on, and reach out to other bloggers and readers through the ‘blogoshpere’. All of these benefit me directly, if not financially!

To me, those things represent direct results of working in the medium.

Where I am working with companies that I refer to on the blog then I make it clear there is a commercial relationship. I also make it clear that if I find they’ve screwed up, then I’ll call them out. Otherwise it’s just BS. It’s the only way I feel easy about being publisher/editor. It doesn’t seem to change what people say on the blog but then this is mostly UK audience. I don’t think we’ re that advanced in dishing out the questions around transparency. We don’t have that guilt thing post-Enron.

Whether you call it ‘ads rev’ or ‘sponsorship’ doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, the person who’s paying money wants a bit more than reflecting on your or my glory. But expressing a ‘sponsorship’ does impact the way in which the financial model is built. That will change over time. But for the moment – niche status works well.

In the news world, beyond syndication/aggregation for reward and advertising, I’m not sure I see too many additional services that can be directly offered. But the niche matters. It is the value of the niche to the paymasters that really matters. Not being MySpace.

Then there are the other services I perform anyway.

I’m trying to figure out if it is possible to support a media professional who is producing media–and doesn’t have anything else to sell. So in many ways, you and 99.999999 percent of anybody in the blogosphere that are making money–you are promoting and selling something *other* than blogging. Which is fine. But how do you deal with the current fashion of transparency?

Thanks for being so open. We all understand NDAs, but your comments are, as usual, right on the money.

Cheers.

It’s about being clear on what you want financially out of blogging, how you think that might be achieved and being prepared to modify the model as you go forward.

Not all things work in all circumstances. Much of what I get financially does not get reflected directly on the site. That’s the nature of the beast UNLESS you want to go for a more traditional MSM/ad-based approach which I don’t think works terribly well for the ‘average’ blogger and which is dependent on a numbers game. I often say I only want 1%. It’s enough.

What I am really saying I guess is that blogging provides opportunities for multiple revenue streams, some of which are direct many of which are indirect. It all depends on how ‘you’ want to position yourself and your blog presence as a pathway to revenue.

Tom was very clear from day one: ‘journalist/blogger.’ I was kind of on that kick at one stage but have modified my thinking a lot over time. I’m deliberately not chasing news most of the time. That’s not something where I can add value unless something drops in my lap.

That in turn impacts the way the model develops. So for instance you’d go to a news blog for that kind of commodity thing but you’d maybe come to me for some analysis. If you’re a vendor, that can be hugely valuable, especially as conversations develop. It IS the market intelligence needed to shape development in some cases. Note Guy Letts post about wiki and Sage customers as an example. Not all of that conversation is happening online. Neither do many of the conversations that happen.

Is that any more helpful?

Over-promise:

“Anyone interested in figuring out how this could be applied to your firm – just leave a comment”

Under-deliver:

“Sorry guys – usually I’m more than happy to run off at the mouth but I really do have to keep this one to myself”