I'd Rather Be Writing » wordpress weekly

The Problem of Free and the Long Tail of Content Production

Tom Johnson — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:23:24 +0000

Internet users have grown accustomed to free content. But this is not without its problems. Jeff Chandler used to produce a Weekly WordPress podcast . His last podcast, “I tried,” is dated back in December. It’s a long, tired explanation about the difficulties of pouring so much energy into an endeavor that has no substantial financial return. As he moves toward marriage and maintains a full-time job, the amount of free time he can devote to essentially a profitless hobby shrinks even more. After more than 100 podcast episodes, it seems he’s starting to change his course.

It’s no surprise to me that the podcast would come to an end (at least the recent hiatus seems to portend an end). About a year ago, I remember speaking with a friend of mine who works at WordPress. I told him they should hire Jeff on their WordPress team, because his steam would eventually run out without a sustainable income, and this podcast channel, which had a lot of momentum, would slow. My friend explained that it’s not always necessary to incorporate everyone into full-time WordPress employment to ensure their services continue. Looking back, to some degree I was right.

Recently it seems that Automattic, the leaders of WordPress, too, is also feeling the squeeze of free. According to Chandler’s last podcast, with the closure of Windows Live services, hundreds of thousands of bloggers have been signing up at WordPress.com. WordPress.com increased from 400,000 users to 900,000 users per month.

I don’t know if it’s related, but recently I noticed that Automattic started clarifying their prices for Akismet, the plugin that helps block spam. It used to be that when you signed up for a WordPress.com username, you automatically saw an Akismet API key in your profile that you could plug into your blog. I missed this idea, but apparently Akismet was a service that I should have been paying monthly fees for since the beginning. In fact, since I have more than 25,000 page views a month (my site received 57,000 page views last month), I am supposed to pay $50 a month for the Akismet service.

The following image shows the pricing model. If your site receives more than 25,000 page views per month, you have to select an enterprise commercial license starting at $50 a month.

Akismet's newly clarified pricing structure shows that if you have more than 25,000 page views a month, you have to pay $50 a month for Akismet.

That seemed steep to me, so I deactivated Akismet and am now trying out Antispambee, which so far works quite well. I also closed all comments on posts older than 60 days. Ninety-nine percent of comments on old posts are spam anyway, so this just reduces the amount of possible spam.

While of course I dislike the sudden clarification of Akismet pricing, I have to wonder if WordPress itself isn’t feeling the squeeze of free services, somewhat like Jeff with his podcast. Automattic gives a lot of software away for free, making money mostly through add-on services such as custom domain names, access to the stylesheet, and storage space. Controlling spam is a must-do task on a blog, so this is a potential money maker if they can sell it as an add on. (Without a spam blocker, I would receive about 100 spam comments a day, which would essentially kill the open commenting policy on my site.)

I had a more regular podcast on my site last year as well. I will still occasionally post a podcast, but it became clear to me more than a year ago that podcasting wasn’t my future. Listeners are far fewer than blog readers, the time required to produce a podcast is much higher, and podcasters are constantly being threatened by big media’s move into the amateur’s space. Why listen to me drone on about technical writing when you have This American Life, Radiolab, The New Yorker Fiction podcast, and dozens more professional podcasts in your queue?

This brings me to a larger point. More and more free content producers are going to fade away. They’re going to realize that, for the effort they put into their sites, the return isn’t worth it. Regular, sustainable content produced on a daily basis will decline.

However, because more people will start blogs and podcasts, this decline in content from the free content producers will be balanced out by the general increase in collective content. Your RSS Reader will still be full of new feeds to check out, but rather than reading through your top 20 feeds in your blogroll, you’ll read through the top posts from over 200 blog feeds. This is the long tail of content production. Fewer bloggers and podcasters producers will push out regular content because they don’t see enough return. But since there will be more content producers overall, readers won’t notice a difference.

The long tail of content production: Even though the number of new content per source decreases, the overall increase in the number of sources leads to a greater amount of overall content.

In other words, never mind that Tom only publishes 1 podcast every 3 months. You can grab podcasts from 15 other sites that are even better. Those 15 other sites may only produce 1 podcast every 3 months as well. But collectively, your iPod is still full of new podcasts to listen to. You just have more variety and more sources that you’re pulling from. Content is still free, but the sources are more varied.

Will the paid content model ever work online for amateurs? Will the influencers eventually fade away into a sea of irregular content producers spread out globally? I think so. But I am not saddened by the fact that it’s harder and harder to make money online. I like the idea that a global conversation across countries and companies and contexts is taking place. When ideas come from a greater diversity of engaged people, the information is richer and deeper.

For me, the revenue I make from my blog through ads, WordPress consulting, and speaking engagements is minimal compared to the salary from my regular job. I never entertained the idea that my blog could somehow support me and my family. Also, if I somehow did find enough revenue (possible if you’re single, live in a shared room outside of town, have no debt or car, and eat only Top Ramen noodles), I would run out of fodder for my blog without a job to keep me challenged. I would slip away from my immersion in the technical writer’s world. This world keeps me engaged and provides me with topics to blog about.

If all revenues cease from my blog, I would still find a lot of value in it, because it keeps me professionally engaged. This is why if you’re starting a blog, it’s probably best to let it accompany your career choice. With this strategy, your blog efforts always provide an indirect financial return on career growth. This indirect financial return can be an incentive that helps you keep blogging even when there seems to be little tangible reward.

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The Long Tail of Online Profitability

Tom Johnson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:27:11 +0000

Last week I listened to David Peralty give feedback to Jeff Chandler about his WordPress Weekly and WPTavern.com projects (see episode 75). David praised the community and visibility that Jeff had created through his weekly podcast and forum, in addition to his WPTavern.com site, but noted that he was aware Jeff hadn’t reached the monetization goals he hoped to achieve.

In other words, Jeff has done a tremendous job at creating a community and audience for his site and podcast, but he hasn’t found a way to make real money off his activities. If you monetize your online activities, you can then justify and devote more time to the activities to establish and grow your community.

But if you can’t make any money, it’s hard to justify spending so much time online. And if you can’t spend the necessary time online to build your community, your site or podcast won’t take off.

Although David was critiquing Jeff, I felt like he could have been equally speaking to me. I listened carefully, waiting for the key ingredient Jeff was missing. What was he not doing? What was he not seeing? How does one move from a hobby site/podcast that has a growing enthusiasm to one that makes enough money to sustain you full time?

I have a few notes, gathered from anecdotes and people I know:

Just recently Cameron Moll, a well-known web designer whose blog is Authentic Boredom, quit his job and turned to freelance full-time. He sells posters and job listings on his site and does some freelance work, I believe.
A basketball buddy of mine explained that, according to Jason Van Orden (who creates the Internet Business Mastery podcast), I should be making $1 per month for every follower I have with my site. Translating that, I should be pulling in more than $2,000 + every month.
My former brother-in-law taught me that information products about making money online are more profitable than selling regular products. He’s an eBay mogul who earns thousands of dollars teaching people how to drop-ship products on eBay. The business of teaching others how to drop-ship is more profitable than actually drop-shipping.
About a year ago Jane kept prodding me to sell some ads in my sidebar. I finally did, mostly by contacting companies separately and pitching ads, and it worked. But ad revenue doesn’t scale. I only have about 12 spaces there. (By the way, there’s an empty spot, if you’re interested.)

Lately I have been mostly resigned to the idea that “information wants to be free,” and that the real benefit of having a blog or podcast is the capitalization on the attention economy of my audience, as cool and unprofitable as it sounds.

But the other day I was talking with Sean, my brother-in-law (a different one), who is an interactive programmer and runs his own company, HD Interactive. Sean manages a successful online business, so I asked him what I am missing. What is that missing element that I could adjust so that I would be profitable? Create a premium version of the podcast? An online site with video tutorials for WordPress or other software? Sponsored posts? WordPress blog design projects? T-shirts? Webinars? e-books? A forum?

As I talked with Sean, it became clear to me that no single product would provide an online revenue model of the sort I’m searching for. There is no missing ingredient. Rather, the revenue model of the Internet is the Long Tail. Of course! I should have seen it coming.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Long Tail, it’s a model by Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson and purports that online stores such as Amazon.com make more from long-term sales of their niche products than they do by selling mainstream products. For example, the Grateful Dead Mug from 1979 that someone purchases from your online store for $5 combines with a thousand other low-selling, inexpensive niche products to surpass the income that you make from selling top-of-the-chart music CDs or other mainstream products.

The neat thing about the Long Tail is that it seems to apply to so many phenomenon online, not just revenue. There’s a long tail of participation. A long tail of travel. There’s even a Long Tail blog, where all of this is discussed. I never thought the Long Tail could apply to my attempts to make money online.

But as I spoke with Sean, I realized that the revenue stream for online activities really is the Long Tail. You won’t make your fortune selling one product or service (even though some have). Instead, it’s the combination of various revenue streams, of selling a variety of products, that combines to create an income to equal your goals.

For example, you sell a premium and paid version of a podcast, and maybe 50 people sign up for the premium version. You sell ads in your sidebar, and maybe a dozen sign up. You create a forum and offer a tiered membership, and some more sign up. You sell T-shirts, mugs, and other paraphernalia, and some more sign up. You sell video tutorials and e-books and print books, and more sign up. You present at conferences and coordinate webinars, and more sign up. You offer one-on-one tutorials and online training, and more sign up. Any of these methods alone would produce income that is weak and unsustainable, but the combination of them all accrues a revenue stream that is substantial.

Now that I think about it, this is also the strategy Jason Van Orden recommends in a podcast with a hobby geneologist (though I didn’t realize it at the time).

The Long Tail may be the model underlying a number of phenomenon on the Internet. It may also be the best answer to the conundrum of making money online from a popular blog or podcast.

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WordPress Tip: Podcasts on WordPress: WordPress Weekly from the WordPress Tavern

Tom Johnson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:14:20 +0000

Podcasts on WordPress are an excellent way to stay updated with the latest WordPress news, trends, plugins, themes, and other development. I recently discovered a WordPress podcast that I enjoy quite a bit: WordPress Weekly from the WordPress Tavern. The hosts include Jeff Chandler and David Peralty — both knowledgeable, passionate people about WordPress and blog design and development.

The two WordPress podcasts I listened to this evening include an episode on WordPress theme frameworks (specifically, the WordPress Sandbox theme) and another on content generation and SEO. I find that podcasts are perfect for learning while driving, and today I spent about two hours in the car. (Podcasts are also great for long walks.)

WordPress Weekly goes in depth and has relevant content that directly applies to me. If you’re not into WordPress, you’re probably yawning at another one of my WordPress posts. But whatever your interests, I encourage you to check out some podcasts on the corresponding subjects. Although podcasts aren’t suitable for detailed step-by-step procedures, they’re perfect for communicating conceptual information. What other medium can hold a person’s attention for upwards of 45 minutes at a time?

WordPress Weekly is hosted on Talkshoe, a popular service for podcasting. You can call in with questions if you join the show on Friday nights.

WordPress Weekly podcast -- a podcast on WordPress that I highly recommend