4 ms·

I can make enough money to cover costs selling ads direct - however, I know a lot about making money with advertising. effectively professional sites being run

I can make enough money to cover costs selling ads direct - however, I know a lot about making money with advertising. effectively professional sites being run as businesses already The key issue here is that "professional" != "expert affiliate marketer" or "direct ad salesman". It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. This is very non-obvious stuff that takes a lot of time, energy and money to learn, and most people running websites - professional or amateur - do not know.

Silhouette 14y ago
It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. I don't doubt it, I just question how many of those people are doing that. How many top notch professional journalists are really trying to make money from their writing by running their own independent site funded by the likes of Google Ads? I'm a pretty avid surfer and have quite a diverse range of hobbies and professional interests, and I honestly can't think of a single site I've visited any time recently, in either a personal or professional capacity, that would fall into that category. Obviously I might be an outlier, but it does seem unlikely in this case.
- thenomad 14y ago
  I think you may be being sidetracked by the word "journalist" here - I'm using it to refer to anyone with the skills to write good content, not just print/TV journalists. Are you sure that on all of the surfing sites you've visited, there's at least one person who has the very specific and rare skills I've mentioned? I'd be extremely surprised if that was the case. And if they don't have those skills, and the ad networks go away or divide their revenues by three, to quote the meme, they're going to have a bad time.

Silhouette 14y ago

It's possible to be a very professional journalist who's extremely good at writing compelling content and sharing it online, and have not a goddamn clue about how to run a successful ad campaign, or how to sell advertising space to multinationals. I don't doubt it, I just question how many of those people are doing that. How many top notch professional journalists are really trying to make money from their writing by running their own independent site funded by the likes of Google Ads? I'm a pretty avid surfer and have quite a diverse range of hobbies and professional interests, and I honestly can't think of a single site I've visited any time recently, in either a personal or professional capacity, that would fall into that category. Obviously I might be an outlier, but it does seem unlikely in this case.

thenomad 14y ago
I think you may be being sidetracked by the word "journalist" here - I'm using it to refer to anyone with the skills to write good content, not just print/TV journalists. Are you sure that on all of the surfing sites you've visited, there's at least one person who has the very specific and rare skills I've mentioned? I'd be extremely surprised if that was the case. And if they don't have those skills, and the ad networks go away or divide their revenues by three, to quote the meme, they're going to have a bad time.