Bad Stats: Are There Really Almost As Many Professional Bloggers As Lawyers?
This morning, the Wall Street Journal features an article about professional blogging, a topic that is obviously very close to our hearts here at RWW. Mark Penn, the article's author, even cites some of our own numbers, though the most astonishing number he arrives at is that America is now home to over 452,000 professional bloggers who use blogging as their primary source of income. If these numbers are indeed true, then that would mean that there are now almost as many bloggers in the U.S. as lawyers (550,000). We do, however, have our doubts.
Dubious Income Stats
Some of the numbers in this piece, however, seem more than far-fetched. Penn, for example, argues that it "takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 a year." Given that Technorati's latest State of the Blogosphere, where Penn gets this number from, reports that the mean CPM (that is, the income per 1,000 ad impressions) that U.S. bloggers are getting from advertising is around $1.20.
Actually, once you read the Technorati post, you can see that Penn ignores the fact that this number is based on the average income of bloggers who had 100,000 or more unique visitors, and that the median annual income for pro bloggers was only about $22,000 (in comparison, the median income for U.S. households is about $50,000).
Penn also quotes some of our own statistics. Last October, we asked 20 top-tier tech bloggers and social media consultants about their income. While we indeed reported that these top tier bloggers can get $75 to $200 per post, we also mention that the average tech blogger who responded made about $25 per post.
We also wonder if the calculations that Penn uses to arrive at 452,000 pro bloggers aren't a bit off. Penn, for example, says that 1.7 million bloggers 'profit from their work.' This number, however, comes from a statistic on the Blog World Expo site, which doesn't even quote a source for this number, and which doesn't even say that 1.7 million make money from their blogs, but that 1.7 million list making money as a reason to blog.
Some Good Questions
Penn does ask a number of good questions, though, even if they are clearly colored by the current state of journalism as a profession and business:
are they covered by unemployment insurance if tastes change and their sites go under? Are they considered journalists under shield laws? Are they subject to libel suits? Are there any limits to the opinions they churn out, or any standards to rein them in? Is there someone to complain to about false blogs or hidden conflicts? At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Panasonic outfitted bloggers with free Panasonic equipment; did that affect their opinions about the companies they wrote about? There are more questions than answers about America's Newest Profession.
[...]
But for how long can nearly 500,000 people who are gradually replacing whole swaths of journalists survive with no worker protections, no enforced ethics codes, limited standards, and, for most, no formal training?
These questions are indeed worth pondering (though some of them could also be asked about newspapers as well). Unlike Penn, however, we are quite optimistic that many journalists will see the light in the long run and that readers will quickly weed out the blogs that have no ethics codes and standards. As for formal training, Penn's selective use of statistics in his piece seems to make that argument for him - and Penn, of course, isn't even a journalist himself.
Illustration titled "Blogging Au Plein Air, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot" by Flickr user Mike Licht
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It does look a bit inflated, the number of bloggers living from their blogs... but it is still a very interesting trend to watch.
Also he is a CEO, writing an article for Wall Street Journal, an article about how the number of journalists is decreasing while number of people living of writing blogs is increasing... very, very interesting trend...
There is a lot to think about if you are a journalist these days. To go solo, get your own platform and your own audience, and maybe do some freelance writing on the side while building your blog income, might be the best choice...
Marko
http://www.howtomakemyblog.com
Now THAT'S some good journalism!
That doesnt really seem that bad, think about your costs if you are sitting at home not paying for an expensive office, not paying for petrol to drive to work, eating lunch at home, that alone would save you hundreds a week.
So even if you made $22,000 from blogging it would be better than collecting welfare... and most bloggers usually have side business such as eBay stores or affilate links, they sell onsite links to seo agencies...
So that would make an extra few hundred dollars a month easily.
of the 452,000 pro bloggers, I would suspect that 451,000 are single and live in the basement of Mom and Dad's house.
I think blogging is not the end of a path
That doesnt really seem that bad, think about your costs if you are sitting at home not paying for an expensive office, not paying for petrol to drive to work, eating lunch at home, that alone would save you hundreds a week.
So even if you made $22,000 from blogging it would be better than collecting welfare... and most bloggers usually have side business such as eBay stores or affilate links, they sell onsite links to seo agencies...
So that would make an extra few hundred dollars a month easily aynen oyle..
It does look a bit inflated, the number of bloggers living from their blogs... but it is still a very interesting trend to watch.
Also he is a CEO, writing an article for Wall Street Journal, an article about how the number of journalists is decreasing while number of people living of writing blogs is increasing... very, very interesting trend...
There is a lot to think about if you are a journalist these days. To go solo, get your own platform and your own audience, and maybe do some freelance writing on the side while building your blog income, might be the best choice aynen oyle ...
I agree that PhoneGap's vision is the way to go - but they are lightyears behind the QuickConnect framework. I've been working with these frameworks for the past 4 months and there is simply no comparison. QuickConnect is everything PhoneGap
Wow, I've never seen that article but as soon as I saw those stats I figured something had to be off. I really can't see there being as many probloggers as lawyers out there.
Then again, I know there are a lot of bloggers out there that make far less than $1,000 a month who could technically be called professional bloggers since they are making money from it.
I find those figures incredible; 452000 people use blogging as their main source of income!
I wonder how many of those people are younger (14-22) who are students and blog as a part time source of income. That would explain at least a portion of those numbers and make them more reasonable.
Jees didnt realise you could make so much money from blogging, you learn something new every day.