Blog Update...

So if you're a regular reader of my blog, you may have noticed it looks a bit different. Starting today, this blog was approved for Google AdSense. Leading up to the days of my independent media class project, I'm doing a little experiment to see how much Google AdSense really contributes to a blog or blogger's income.

So what did I have to do to get Google AdSense? Easy if you have a blogger/gmail account. All you do on Blogger is go to your dashboard, click earnings and connect Google AdSense. You click which Google account you want to select (if you have more than one), as well as which blog URL you want the ads to appear on. Once you've been approved, you'll get an email and you can choose if you want ads to appear in your sidebar, below posts or both. Right now, it's both. The ads seems slightly relevant to my blog; I keep seeing ads for Columbia Journalism School, so we're on the right track.

Another thing to note, if you track your page views and where they come from, it really is interesting to note everyday and then track how much you're making on AdSense. If I had been approved yesterday, when for some reason I got 97 page views in a few hours from Malaysia, I would be making a lot of money already...maybe.

If you think the ads are distracting, want to know more, etc, feel free to comment below! I'll be posting updates on how this is working in the upcoming weeks.

Review on Brian Stelter's "YouTube Videos Pull In Real Money" (NY Times, 12/10/08)

Before YouTube, home videos were simply for preserving memories for a small group of people, maybe just limited to family. Now, 'home videos' are being made to make money, entertain millions and to have the satisfaction of "going viral." 

Michael Buckley's job sounds like the dream; he's self-taught, self-employed, makes at least $100,000 from YouTube advertisements- hopefully more than enough to help him escape his previous credit-card debt. However, it took him a while to get there. 

I had no idea that only 3 percent of of the videos are supported by advertising, as it seems like every time I try and watch something on YouTube, there's a 30-second mandatory ad, or an ad that I can skip after five seconds.

The truth is, "Everybody’s fighting to be seen online; you have to strategize and market yourself.”

And similar to first-time bloggers who have realized they can gain revenue from something they started for fun, Buckley said, "I didn’t start it to make money, but what a lovely surprise.”