The topic of the weekend was advertising. Not just the Super Bowls ads (which I'll come back to), but advertising on the Internet.
Pajamas Media had some sort of meltdown over the weekend. They haven't been bringing in enough ad money, so they laid off some writers and plan to do more TV stuff. Doesn't sound very promising to me. More from Instapundit.
In my media class today, we were discussing the fact that ads on major newspaper websites only bring in 6% of the total profits. And the traditional advertisements in the newspapers are losing out to realtor.com, match.com, monster.com. They better come up with a way to milk money out of these online ventures quickly.
And then I've started experimenting with putting up advertising on the sidebar. I was a total geek over the weekend learning about the different methods of determining rates and styles of ads. It turns out that I can make much more money selling my own space, rather than relying on google ads.
Over the years, I have gotten offers to buy space on the sidebar and I've always ignored them. I just didn't have the time to figure it all out. But I'm out of work in May, so I've got to figure out something else to feed my shoe habit. This weekend, I set up a Paypal account, put together a press kit, added Google analytics, and finally started answering my e-mail from advertisers. We'll see how it works out.
Apt. 11d 
It’s kind of weird to lay off the writers, rather than cutting the advertising rates, particularly since I believe the writers were the original draw. I’m sure I speak for a lot of people when I say I don’t have a burning desire to watch Glenn Reynolds on video.
There are some real video stars among bloggers. Vodkapundit did some very nice video reporting in Denver last year for PJ Media, and I’ve always liked Ed Driscoll’s Silicon Graffiti pieces, which are very attractively produced. Mary Katharine Ham did some nice video work in her day (I love her “Obama on My Shoulder”).
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I’m guessing that not many readers are crying about the problems at PJM. They made a lot of mistakes. Their readers are a scary bunch. I don’t want to bash them too much, because they were cool enough to publish the occasional liberal and the editors were supportive of new writers. Even the more moderate and thoughtful conservative blog, Culture 11, closed shop earlier this month. It’s hard to make money off this blog business.
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I’m thinking of starting a new business where I send reminder e-mails to elected officials and those thinking of running. Like every April, they get one showing a guy pulling his hair out while doing his taxes and then putting the extra he owes on a credit card. There’s a caption saying something like “Do you think he’ll believe you just forgot?” There’s also one for paying the nanny’s taxes (harried parent doing drop-off at day care on an ice cold morning). Ideas for how to do a ‘wide-stance’ inspired message are welcome. It has to be PG-13.
Anyway, best luck to Laura.
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“Even the more moderate and thoughtful conservative blog, Culture 11, closed shop earlier this month.”
I kept hearing how great Culture11 was (and I’m a big fan of Eve Tushnet), but despite having a bunch of people move to DC, they really didn’t promote the thing. It was gone almost before I knew it was there. I also suspect that what these ventures are missing are actual business people. Josh Trevino has some more thoughts for anyone who wants to try something similar.
http://joshuatrevino.com/?p=703
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