Successful Bloggers

Over the weekend, I had the chance of meeting 2 of my old friends. 1 of them is an engineer while the other was in the IT industry. Though the meeting was on separate occasion with each individual, surprisingly, I had 1 common topic for discussion. You guessed it right! It was on how to make more money.

• Both of them were very keen and enthusiastic about generating a higher income for themselves and their family but didn't know how.
• Both of them wanted to start off some business, but didn't know what business they should venture into.
• Both agreed that they lacked in marketing skills which is of utmost important to have in running a business.
• Both had limited funds for investment in the business.

BUT,

• Both had Internet connection + computer facility at home.
• Both had spare time that they could devote to everyday.
• Both had some experience/expertise that they could share with others for their benefit.

So, I suggested that while they were thinking about a more appropriate business plan, why not do some blogging. To my surprise, they were quite unfamiliar with that term. One of them even kept pronouncing 'BLOG' as 'BLOP'!!! And continued to explain how you go about doing it and how bloggers make money and what were the potentials for the bloggers. So, in that process of finding more resources for them, I stumbled upon a list of really successful bloggers.

This brought back the confidence in me to continue blogging. Reason No. 1 was for the amount of these successful bloggers made and Reason No. 2 was the notion 'everyone is blogging these days, so you can't make it' wasn't true. At least not in the case of my friends. So there still must be a BIG opportunity out there in blogging. Ok, enough of the talk, let's look at the list of bloggers who has started bringing in the $.

List of Successful Bloggers (Source: BusinessWeek)

boingboing.net
Launched: January, 2000
Revenue: Over $1 million a year

icanhascheezburger.com
Launched: January, 2007
Revenue: Estimated $5,600 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

shoemoney.com
Launched: October, 2005
Revenue: $12,000 a month

overheardinnewyork.com
Launched: July, 2003
Revenue: Estimated $8,100 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

kottke.org
Launched: March, 1998
Revenue: Estimated $5,300 a month based on ad rate

talkingpointsmemo.com
Launched: November, 2000
Revenue: Estimated $45,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

perezhilton.com
Launched: September, 2004
Revenue: Estimated $111,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

gothamist.com (and 13 other sites in the "-ist" network)
Launched: January, 2003
Revenue: Monthly average of $50,000 to $60,000 over the past 12 months

techcrunch.com
Launched: June, 2005
Revenue: $200,000 a month

gofugyourself.typepad.com
Launched: July, 2004
Revenue: Estimated $6,240 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

mashable.com
Launched: July, 2005
Revenue: Estimated $166,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

problogger.net (multiple sites)
Launched: November, 2004
Revenue: Over $100,000 a year

michellemalkin.com
hotair.com
MichelleMalkin.com launched: June, 2004
Hot Air launched: April, 2006
Revenue: NA