{"id":258682,"date":"2015-02-02T17:34:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T22:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=258682"},"modified":"2024-01-25T18:20:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T23:20:03","slug":"ben-thompson-the-one-man-blog-isnt-dead-its-better-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2015\/02\/02\/ben-thompson-the-one-man-blog-isnt-dead-its-better-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Thompson: The one-man blog isn\u2019t dead, it\u2019s better than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, the\u00a0announcement<\/a>\u00a0by veteran political blogger Andrew Sullivan that he is retiring from active duty sparked a firestorm of blogging-related responses (including\u00a0one from me<\/a>) in which many argued that the days of the lone blogger are over \u2014 just like the days of the cowboy or the gentleman adventurer are over. Technology analyst and blogger Ben Thompson begs to differ, however: he\u00a0says his site is doing<\/a>\u00a0better than ever, and that his success is proof that a subscription-based niche model for publishing can work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve written about Thompson a number of times before, because I think his attempt to build a business around just his writing is an interesting one: he launched his site, Stratechery<\/a>, in April of last year as a fairly unknown blogger<\/a> \u2014 certainly not a household name, even in tech circles \u2014 with a tiered \u201cfreemium\u201d subscription plan that was based primarily on long, analytical blog posts and a daily newsletter with similar content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within about six months, he had over a thousand<\/a> subscribers paying him $100 a year for access to his newsletter (the shorter daily posts on the website are free). That meant an annual revenue run-rate of about $100,000 \u2014 enough to make it a living, along with some speaking and consulting, and tentative proof that a \u201cthousand true fans\u201d model<\/a> like that envisioned by Wired<\/em> editor Kevin Kelly could actually work on a practical basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Niche readers will pay<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In a response to the \u201cblogging is dead\u201d meme that was triggered by Sullivan\u2019s announcement, Thompson says that he just passed<\/a> the 2,000-subscriber mark, which means he now has a revenue run-rate of about $200,000 a year (the \u201cchurn\u201d rate, or the rate at which subscribers drop off, is less than 10 percent he said). And this proves a niche model that serves a specific interest group will work, Thompson argues \u2014 as well or better than a model that relies on mass advertising revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201dI am, of course, acutely aware that there is a tradeoff when it comes to the subscription business model: by making something scarce, and worth paying for, you are by definition limiting your number of readers. Stratechery, though, serves a niche, and niches are best served by making more from customers who really care than from milking pennies from everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Thompson argues \u2014 and I agree \u2014 that Sullivan\u2019s own success helps prove this case as well: in just a year, the Daily Dish blogger managed to convince more than 30,000 subscribers to contribute money, and by last year was pulling in close to $1 million<\/a> in revenue solely from subscriptions. That may look sad compared to the revenues of a site like BuzzFeed or Vox, but it\u2019s an amazing success for a small blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Blogging\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The core of Thompson\u2019s argument is that the more niche and targeted your content is, the better off you are likely to be with a subscription model (The Information, a business and technology site started by former Wall Street Journal<\/em> reporter Jessica Lessin, is another good example<\/a>). Sites like Vox and BuzzFeed have to go broad, Thompson says, but that ultimately means that advertising revenue is your only real option, and making that work requires hundreds of millions of pageviews (unless you go after a very specific topic niche like Daring Fireball<\/a> blogger John Gruber does).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a sense, the blogging world \u2014 or even the world of online publishing as a whole \u2014 has bifurcated to create what I call a barbell effect<\/a>: sites or even publications like newspapers that are huge and broad and have powerful brands will likely succeed, because they can make advertising work. And those that are small and targeted (either by topic or by geography) will likely also be fine. Everything in the middle, however, is in for a world of pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vox\u2019s Ezra Klein and BuzzFeed\u2019s Ben Smith may argue that size and scale is the only route to success, says Thompson, but that isn\u2019t the case<\/a> \u2014 there is room for the one-man (or woman) blogger as a lifestyle business as well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201dI almost feel compelled to note that my conclusion \u2013 and experience \u2013 is the exact opposite of Klein\u2019s and all the others\u2019: I believe that Sullivan\u2019s The Daily Dish will in the long run be remembered not as the last of a dying breed but as the pioneer of a new, sustainable journalism that strikes an essential balance to the corporate-backed advertising-based scale businesses that Klein (and the afore-linked Smith) is pursuing.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone will be able \u2014 or will even want to \u2014 put in the kind of work required to maintain such a site, as Thompson admits<\/a>. After all, Sullivan\u2019s departure didn\u2019t come because his model wasn\u2019t working, but because he was simply worn out. But for those who do want to pursue this individual model, the Stratechery blogger argues that the potential for them to do that, and to be successful at it, is larger than it has ever been.<\/p>\n

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Not surprisingly, the\u00a0announcement\u00a0by veteran political blogger Andrew Sullivan that he is retiring from active duty sparked a firestorm of blogging-related responses (including\u00a0one from me) in which many argued that the days of the lone blogger are over \u2014 just like the days of the cowboy or the gentleman adventurer are over. Technology analyst and blogger … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Ben Thompson: The one-man blog isn\u2019t dead, it\u2019s better than ever”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":true,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gigaom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258729,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258682\/revisions\/258729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}