Blogging for dollars

It's not just a hobby - some small sites are making big money. Here's how to turn your passion into an online empire.

Business 2.0 Magazine
By Paul Sloan and Paul Kaihla,
October 2 2006: 11:31 AM EDT

Michael Arrington is a partying kind of guy. While showing off his home in Atherton, Calif., he boasts about how he crammed 500 people into his one-acre backyard at a bash in February. Then there are the official parties, like the one he threw in mid-August at August Capital, a nearby venture firm. Arrington posted an open invitation on his website at 3 a.m. By sunrise, all 500 spots were taken; the onslaught of traffic crashed his site. "I knew it would be fast," says Arrington, who houses so many out-of-towners in his ranch home that he often isn't sure who's crashing on which mattress on which floor in which room.

Arrington, a 36-year-old entrepreneur behind a long list of unrecognizable startups, has suddenly become one of the rising stars of Silicon Valley. Why? The answer lies in TechCrunch, Arrington's blog about new technologies and companies. In the year since he launched the site, he has amassed such a strong following that he's become a go-to person for VCs and tech execs looking to leak corporate tidbits or announce news. More than 1.5 million readers regularly check out his site. But here's what gives Arrington real distinction: He's pulling in $60,000 in ad revenue every month. That's 10 times what the site was making earlier this year, which was when Arrington, convinced of the potentially monstrous riches ahead, quit his day job as president of a startup to blog full-time.

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The Top Pickers vs. the Pack

Sites Want Users to Buy Into the 'Genius' Factor

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; Page D01




James Acevedo is a "genius," though he admits no one at the elementary school in Ridgewood, N.J., where he teaches third grade, knows it.

But the Web site where he competes nightly, PicksPal.com, was so taken by his record at forecasting sporting events that it included him last month in a newly compiled list of 30 super-achievers culled from about 100,000 members and began selling their "genius picks" to the public.

"It's sort of self-gratifying to find that there's actually something to my gut feeling," said Acevedo, 26.

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