Monetize

If ever there was a "buzzword," it's MONETIZE. One of the most popular search terms is "How to Monetize Your Blog" or "How to Monetize Your Website."

I was having a chat today with a co-worker about twitter. He had sent out a tweet which, by the time it arrived, was too late for the event he was promoting. He remarked how overloaded twitter servers must be, with the service right now enjoying its "heyday." I was reminded of my "weekend experiences" with twitter: several weeks in a row, it seems to up and die on Friday evening, so none of my tweets from about 6pm Friday through 4 or 5pm Sunday ever appear on twitter or Facebook. The real dilemma here is for the people running twitter: how to monetize the darn thing! There just doesn't seem to be a way...

Newspapers have websites and they are also fit to be tied as to how to monetize them. Anytime a newspaper tries to "charge admission" to its website (or make readers PAY for content) readership drops quickly and dramatically. The Albany Times Union is doing okay with its webiste, for now. I noticed over the last 72 hours that their site has gotten "sticky," a phenomenon a friend of mine says is due to something called "brightcove" which he believes is the advertsiing software or service the TU website uses. It has suddenly become time-consuming to load pages and difficult to get off the paper's website once you're on it. (And that happens on a fast PC with a T1 connection!) Has the website become deliberately sticky or is it over-monetized? I notice some ads appear that obscure what I'm trying to read. I have to click to dismiss them... if this continues, the TU will probably notice a drop in readers, as those with pesky or slow or older machines will avoid "getting stuck." Sometimes blogs get bogged down with code that secretly injects pop-up ads (death for any good blog!) when bloggers try to make a few cents by monetizing.

The fact of the matter is that most "monetized" blogs are earning just a few dollars a month. Revenue=traffic. But, as with twitter, bucketloads of traffic mean zilch if the website is NOT monetized. There's a lesson here somewhere. Nobody knows what the next big internet trend will be. And when it happens, if a way to monetize is not immediately apparent or is not seized upon, there may not be a way to gain lost ground later. Once used to getting a service for free, most people will either be unable or unwilling to pay for it should a charge be imposed. That, in turn, will open the door for "something else."

Related:

Will social payment platforms really work long-term?

Would You Pay to Read a Twitter Stream?

Twitter equals pure attention for the people who “succeed” on it.

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