August 7, 2007

The Economics of Blogging

"Hundreds of millions of people globally either operate blogs or contribute to them over the course of the year. With 1.5 million new postings a day, blogging likely consumes billions of hours of effort globally," writes David S. Evans, co-author of the book The Catalyst Code, in a blog post today about the economics of the blogosphere Few bloggers make money doing it, of course. Evans (full disclosure: client) tackles the non-dollar economics of blogging:

In many cases people operate a blog because it helps them achieve something they value directly such as influence, information, or interactions with other people. In other cases people operate a blog because it helps them make money directly through advertising or indirectly by building up their professional reputations or cross-selling another business. Fame is a mixed bag - people may blog for fame for fame's sake or they may blog to capitalize on their fame or a bit of both. But in the end, the benefits they get from these various avenues must be enough to compensate for the hours they spend on blogging