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I'm curious what the monetization strategy is for these types of social news sites (ex. Newsley, Rubyflow, markenomics, etc., etc.). Or is the motivation to do

by sga 17y ago

I'm curious what the monetization strategy is for these types of social news sites (ex. Newsley, Rubyflow, markenomics, etc., etc.). Or is the motivation to do the work to build this type of site (both structurally and in a community sense) born out of strong interest in the subject and perhaps the chance of potential indirect future rewards (networking, jobs, etc.). I ask because I'm interested in a couple of other subject areas and considering building a similar style of site and thus wondering what realistic expectations should be re. the potential for direct monetization.

iamelgringo 17y ago
One of the reasons that I picked up the financial/economic news topic was that I did a study on adwords advertising. I bought a list of the top 50,000 paying keywords on Google's Adsense program off of a shady looking site. I then wrote a script to scrape the number of hits on Google for every keyword on the list, and that gave me a ratio of high paying keywords to low hits on Google. The data off the list looked pretty accurate when I spot checked it with my adsense account. There was a huge cluster of keywords on that list that had to do with financial topics. Not only that, but financial services account for 20-25% of all online ad spend. That tells me that there are advertisers that are going to be interested in a niche readership that are interested in economics and financial news. So, my hypothesis is that ad rates for a niche site focused on financial and economic news will be able to use advertising as a revenue stream. To test that hypothesis, I put up some adsense ads two weeks ago, and I got $1 - $1.50 a click. I'm pretty happy with that.
- sga 17y ago
  Thanks for the insight into your method and thinking. I'll definitely consider this if/when I make an attempt. Best of luck with Newsley.
  - iamelgringo 17y ago
    If you ping me, I'd be happy to send you the spreadsheet of the keywords. My contact info is in my profile.

by sga 17y ago

iamelgringo 17y ago

One of the reasons that I picked up the financial/economic news topic was that I did a study on adwords advertising. I bought a list of the top 50,000 paying keywords on Google's Adsense program off of a shady looking site. I then wrote a script to scrape the number of hits on Google for every keyword on the list, and that gave me a ratio of high paying keywords to low hits on Google. The data off the list looked pretty accurate when I spot checked it with my adsense account. There was a huge cluster of keywords on that list that had to do with financial topics. Not only that, but financial services account for 20-25% of all online ad spend. That tells me that there are advertisers that are going to be interested in a niche readership that are interested in economics and financial news. So, my hypothesis is that ad rates for a niche site focused on financial and economic news will be able to use advertising as a revenue stream. To test that hypothesis, I put up some adsense ads two weeks ago, and I got $1 - $1.50 a click. I'm pretty happy with that.

sga 17y ago
Thanks for the insight into your method and thinking. I'll definitely consider this if/when I make an attempt. Best of luck with Newsley.
- iamelgringo 17y ago
  If you ping me, I'd be happy to send you the spreadsheet of the keywords. My contact info is in my profile.