Does this make Adsense?

Could you give up the 9 to 5... at least theoretically... if you're a J list blogger covering a miniscule niche and you're living in a low rent part of the planet... Hmmm??? I planned to write a piece at the end of 2006 all about how a combination of Adsense and a J list blog could - could - help make some folk in some parts of some countries a comfortable living. However, I've written about this in more depth here and in the comments here. And in the end, I have nothing much to add to all that apart from one World Bank factoid,

"2.8 billion people—more than half the people in developing countries—live on less than $700 a year. Of these, 1.2 billion earn less than $1 a day"

There's an un-fleshed out argument to be made here that some development agencies would be well advised to learn about social media, blogging and Adsense. And for those agencies to see where blogging might be included as one part of a social and economic development plan. There's a better argument, or at least a more proven one, that says if you blog and you use Adsense and you can write at least moderately well then blogging may just pay for your rent and your rice.

Comments

[Sarah Clarkin]

While I agree with your general idea here, one should not forget that just getting the money to get a PC for blogging might prove a mission impossible for those living on less than $1 a day. They might not even have electricity at their homes. I also wonder if it would lead to some severe inflation on adsense earning if suddenly there were one billion additional probloggers.

[Graham]

Good points all Sarah. I purposefully worded this post to be as general as possible while putting over just one idea, just one possibility. Basically, I was thinking if I could do this, 'some' others could too and those 'some' others see $100 very differently from me.

I was also relating this directly to my experience in Saigon and my discussions with Vietnamese people about salaries and the like. Power, access to computers, new media literacy, not to mention literacy-literacy, govt. laws, ability to get paid by Adsense or similar service, cash cheques etc. are all very important details. But, I think there's something in the general thrust and as some folk have already proven, it is working,

http://www.stillbop.com/2006/06/adsense_not_aid.html

It's clearly not a solution for all though. A few, maybe.

[Robert Andrews]

Crikey, sounds good. That must be a fair few hits there.

[Graham]

686,946 apparently

[Fons Tuinstra]

Well, in China we have now 137 million people online, but unfortunately, your argument does not hold. The revenue you generate from Adsense depends very much on the living standard of the country you work from. So, you cannot simply assume that bloggers in Vietnam or China would generate the same kind of revenue as a US-blogger. Japan is still the best, in terms of revenue, but too expensive to live for me.

[Graham]

Fons - I was blogging from Vietnam. I was living there. This money was generated while I lived in Vietnam, writing about Vietnamese things. Your argument does not hold.

However, you do hint at a point about keywords and what kinda keywords a native language blog would pick up and how much you might earn from them.

But, I would argue, it is only a matter of (not much) time before more Vietnamese companies start using Adsense and schemes like that to advertise their services. The blog thing is just starting to take off in Vietnam. And when it does there'll be no stopping it and it'll be a huge opportunity for bloggers and advertisers alike.

Repeatedly I've said on this blog that a Vietnamese person blogging in Vietnamese, writing well and writing regularly would be far, far, far more popualar and monetizable than this blog ever was or ever will be.

Just an opinion like.

[lfc]

Very interesting.

"[w]rite at least moderately well" ... in English or Japanese, I think.

Google does not care about the location of the publishers. But in general advertisers are willing to pay more for a click from New York than from, say, Saigon.

My two cents.

[jv]

I can't separate hype from truth about Adsense.

How much traffic a day is needed per day to make $100, realistically speaking?

[Troy]

Just a back of the napkin calculation: at $0.10 per click, $100 is 1000 clicks. If 1% of page impressions lead to clicks, a site would need 100,000 daily impressions.

In practice, those variables change so much based on user base and effectiveness that $100/day could require 25k/day or 250k/day.