Talking of cover stories, New York Magazine has a big piece on "The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom" such as Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis, both of whom declined to be interviewed for the story.... Still, it does cover Engadget's Peter Rojas, who was laid off from Red Herring (as described here in 2003) and freelanced for the Guardian Online section (amongst others) for a while. He's now a millionaire -- and featured on the cover.
There's also Arianna Huffington, whom the blogosphere originally thought was a bit of a joke:
In May 2005, Huffington, the political columnist and sometime candidate for California governor, started the Huffington Post, a blog where her celebrity friends post their rants about politics and culture. By the end of the year, it was clocking 18 million page views a month and had become the fifth-most-linked-to blog in the world. Its ad rates are at the top of its class, about $10 to $30 for every thousand views. With financing from a slate of investors including Ken Lerer, former executive vice-president at AOL Time Warner, the Huffington Post launched with a full-time staff of four and an office in Manhattan -- and the ability to post around the clock.
As the story says:
Yet the rapid rise of the Huffington Post represents a sort of death knell for the traditional blogger. The Post wasn't some site thrown up by a smart, bored Williamsburg hipster who just happened to hit a cultural nerve. It was the product of a corporation--carefully planned, launched, and promoted. This is now the model for success: Of Technorati's top ten blogs, nearly half were created in the same corporate fashion, part of the twin blog empires of Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton.
It's not too late to make your millions blogging, but probably a lot harder than it was four years ago.
Blogs to Riches has several related stories:
• Linkology: How the 50 Most Popular Blogs Are Related • The Early Years: A Timeline of Blogging • Five Cool Blogs to Check Out Now • Meet the Bloggers • The Long Tail Theory: Why B-list Blogs Can Make It, Too
