Do the Blogs Make Money?


...asks Patch.com reporter Andrew Tavani, in a feature today about the Hoboken blog scene.

Not this one, Andrew.

Grafix Avenger doesn't accept advertising.

But anyone is welcome to send me cash, checks, or a gift certificate. Just don't embarrass yourself by being cheap. Give generously and often. If you'd prefer to send goods my shoe size is 7.5, 'medium' in dresses, skirts, blouses-- the color 'black' is a safe bet and any kind of bling will do. But please don't send me your gold teeth. Or your used nose stud. I'll pass on those.

I do suggest you read Tavani's piece.

Even a know-it-all like me learned a few things.

One being the disparity between the monthly traffic stats touted by Hoboken411.com proprietor, Perry Klaussen and those last recorded by the Quantcast web analytic service before Klaussen hid them:

It's hard to know exactly what type of web traffic Hoboken411 draws because web traffic analytics is still such an inexact science and Klaussen, the only one who knows Hoboken411's traffic statistics for sure, is notoriously guarded about sharing such details. In an entry dated August 27, Klaussen writes that Hoboken411 attracts "several million page views…each month," over 400,000 of which he claims, according to Google Analytics, were unique visitors.

However, Klaussen recently hid Hoboken411's traffic data on Quantcast, another web analytics company available online. The last time Patch checked Hoboken411's traffic stats when that information was available was on July 15 and, according to Quantcast's numbers, the blog was attracting just over 32,000 monthly unique visitors. Quantcast describes Hoboken411 as "popular among a younger, fairly wealthy, mostly male audience


400,000 monthly visitors versus 32,000 monthly visitors
... any math geniuses out there? What's the multiplier on that whopper?

Now, while Klaussen refused to be interviewed, GA was-- back in August. And forked over web stats on a spreadsheet generated by Statcounter web analytics. Just to let you know Andrew, September's numbers are way up, the new totals for pages loads and unique visitors are 32,378 and 19,082 respectively. Plug those in, if you like. GA even got 3 paragraphs in the article. (Why not 5, Andrew? Or 6?... *crickets*)

I haven't counted the number of words, but I will.

My traffic's decent for an itty, bitty blog and I have the Poop Jihadi and Team 411 to thank. They did so much PR for GA back in April, they expanded my audience from Mom and a few sympathetic friends to whatever it is today. I'll bet they didn't mean to do that but there's a law of unintended consequences, and those ninnies break it every time.

So, the bottom line is...

No one is really making a living from blogging-- except for Hoboken411.com-- if you believe Klaussen. His income is speculation based on the traffic he's reporting, but this is unverifiable, as he won't open his stats for review.

In the meantime, Grafix Avenger gets me bupkis. Do you know what that means? It's Yiddish for 'sheep excrement'.

No, I am NOT blogging on that fake Hudson Sheep anymore.

When GA goes commercial, you'll know it. There'll be so many blinking, flashing ads on this site you'll think you landed in Vegas, only a nightmarish version where my hand reaches out from the monitor and into your pocket.


(Update, 5:10 pm)
A friend left me a voice mail this afternoon... he was laughing so hard I could barely understand him... something like "Patch.... poll dancer.... front page". I guess he meant this:



(Update, 6:30 pm)

Here's a fresh screenshot of Hoboken411.com's Quantcast page. He has opted to hide his traffic data but the site lists his U.S.rank, 69,244 and notes:

This site reaches approximately 22,242 U.S. monthly people.

Hmmm... a far cry from the claim of "400,000 unique visitors a month".

Comments

  1. If I recall correctly, a few years ago some of the executives at Newsday on Long Island were convicted and went to jail for fraudulently pumping up their circulation statistics to justify their ad prices. The case started out by the auto dealers association on LI filing a civil lawsuit against Newsday to recover money based upon fraudulent artificially inflated circulation numbers. I wonder if any of PK's advertisers understand the math here, adn the similarities. They are essentially paying for something that they are not getting. It kind of sucks if PK is taking advantage of the small business owners here in Hoboken by promising them page hits, i.e. exposure, and not delivering on it.

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  2. There's an expose in there somewhere.

    What data does H411 present to his advertisers to justify his ad rates? Is there an implicit 'understanding' that buying ad space guarantees a good write-up vs. getting panned if one doesn't?

    That's a question I wonder about. Not an accusation.

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  3. Things that make you go hhhhmmmmmmmmm.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. GA - I'm just a tad concerned you are having your mother read this blog. : )

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  6. ply, that's the beauty of unconditional love.

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  7. If Hoboken has about 38,000 residents, who the hell are the other 362,000 people who read H411?

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