Cameron Olthuis

Of course they can. But I want to point you to a very good debate between Jason Calacanis and Alan Meckler.

Jason is arguing that bloggers can make a decent living and Alan doesn’t think they can. The one thing they do seem to agree on is that it takes a decent amount of traffic before that’s possible.

My Take is that you can make money from blogging. But I don’t think that’s the reason 95% of people blog in the first place. There’s a hundred other reasons someone start blogging besides making money, a hobby being one of them. I will agree though, if you do want to make money it will take a lot of traffic before you can replace your daytime job.

There’s a lot of things that you can get from blogging besides getting rich. The networking and contacts I’ve made through my blog alone have been priceless, and I’ve only just scratched the surface.

So who wins they debate? I vote it’s a tie. It’s true that if you want to make money blogging you can, but for the majority that will never happen. I agree with Jason that the industry is still young and ad dollars that go towards blogs is only going to increase. With that the number of people making a living off blogging will go up as well. If you do want to make money from blogging it’s possible, but like anything be prepared for lots of hard work. Let’s not forget the money a person can make indirectly from blogging as well. I’m sure Alan wouldn’t write a blog if it wasn’t tied to making money somehow, I guarantee he doesn’t do it for fun.

Blog, Blogging