To Bloggers: There’s No Money in the Long Tail

A recent article from Read/Write Web hypothesizes that bloggers can’t make significant money off of the long tail. While others agree, I don’t on several points.

Alex Iskold reiterates that “You can make money on the long tail but not in the long tail. The precise point of Anderson’s argument is that it is a collective of the long tail amounts to substantial dollars because the volume is there. In essense, he’s saying that bloggers can’t really make advertising money from their blog but large companies like Google can make money out of all the hundreds of thousands of bloggers. While that’s true, it’s still relative.

First, where do we draw the line between not making money and actually making money from blogs? A few dollars a month is not making money. How about a few hundred dollars?

If we go back and review my previous poll on how much bloggers earn from Google AdSense, about 38% of the respondents say they get at least $100PHP 5,869INR 8,475EUR 95CNY 728 a month. And that does not include the 26% of the respondents from the TLA poll who says they get at least another $100PHP 5,869INR 8,475EUR 95CNY 728 from link ads.

If those figures can’t be considered significant, then I don’t know how much is enough. A regular month’s salary perhaps?