How to Make Money Online - Michael Arrington Makes $150,000 a month from Techcrunc

You want to know how to make money online then take a look at Techcrunch - $150,000 a month (2007) is serious money from a blog ! But apparently that's what Michael Arrington makes with TechCrunch blog. Mr Arrington created TechCrunch in June 2005 and it has been so successful he now has five full-time writers and five part-timers. He used to be a corporate lawyer (until he saw the light !) specializing in venture capital start-ups and makes use of his connections to write his blog, but even so $150,000 a month from advertising revenue is a lot of advertising and a lot of clicks on those pesky little ads.! http://www.businessinnovation.cmp.com/articles/strat_061215pg2.jhtml




He says “I don’t cover news unless it’s interesting. I write stories companies don’t want me to write”. He also operates on rumor and insider information, which may be illegal in stocktrading, but not here . He also says the secret is to write passionately about something you love. So now you know, except I suspect there's other stuff he ain't letting on about too.



According to other bloggers his success is based on the fact that he found a niche and exploited it; he gets stories first; his blog actually contains some useful information; his opinions are worth paying attention to; he negotiates special advertising deals (so he's not getting all his money from Adsense or putting all his eggs in one basket - and as a lawyer he is no doubt an expert in negotiating good deals); he has contacts within the industry; his blog has a brand (although it didn't when he started out a year ago). He used to post 3 times a day - but not anymore, as stated above he has people posting for him.



There are apparently other bloggers who make similar amounts - Problogger could be one and Gigaom another (allegedly).



Other factors which may contribute to the success of TechCrunch, Mr Arrington has lots of other businesses on the go and is on the Board of Directors of a number of companies. In addition TechCrunch :

was featured in a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle

the Financial Times wrote about it in December, 2006.

Michael Arrington was named a 'Web Celeb' by Forbes on January 24, 2007.

he was also named one of the 50 Most Important People on the Web by PCWorld in March 2007.

I have looked at his blogs. They are well put together and certainly look more like websites than blogs but I see nothing so compelling on them that would bring in $150,000 in advertising from people clicking on stuff !, but WTFDIK, I could say the same about many other blogs too. One blogger says he gets 2 million visitors a month, his blog is certainly interesting but even so the numbers are surprising to say the least. I guess the blogosphere is a 'really big place'!



So the way to do it seems to be have something you're passionate about, write about it, make the content interesting (how many times have I read that before!), it also helps if you have a few contacts that can get you information before anyone else has it, and people will be unable to resist, they will simply flock to your site to find out what all the fuss is about !