What do the experts say about "monetizing" websites?

Posted by Sheila Conlin

If you look at these three websites you see three very different models for monetizing news and information.

In Rick Kupchella's "Bring me the News" site he boasts, in a video tour he gives of the site, that you will not see flashing adds and obnoxious pop ups. But they have sponsors that pay to put their "information" on the site.




But on Jim Hummel's site you have a very different model. He is a non profit news website that gets some funding from a government watch dog group. As well as accepting donations from the public. Here' is how he describes the latter on his site:

"The Hummel Report is in 501 (c)3 non-profit application. We do not sell advertising. We sell good government and we only accept donations."

Our third site is the one where Jill Burke works is much more of what I expected to see on a news and information website. It's a three column page and the column on the right is all about ads. I will be speaking with a manager there when I return from my 3-day shoot in Rhode Island and will be able to elaborate on their monetization plan - after that.

I also contacted a gent who makes his living helping corporations monetize their websites. I have sent him some questions and am waiting to hear back on his analysis of the three sites.
His name is Bill Hartzer. You can see his site by clicking here.
On his site he has this about our topic:

Monetizing Your Website

Just because you have a lot of visitors on your web site doesn’t necessarily mean that your web site is going to make you a lot of money. And you don’t have to have a lot of visitors in order to make a lot of money from your web site–you’ve got to have the right visitors looking for what your web site has to offer.

I realize that there’s a lot of different types of web sites out there–and it seems as if just about everyone has a different goal in mind. Bloggers blog to put their thoughts down online and share their thoughts with others, and other bloggers are passionate about their chosen topic (and thus they typically use Google AdSense to monetize their blog). Online businesses sell products using online shopping carts: their goal is to get someone to buy a product. Still, other web sites’ goals are to simply brand their products (many corporations’ products are too expensive to sell directly online). In any case, if you own a commercial web site you have a purpose for putting up that web site–and you want to somehow make money from that web site. If you don’t have quality visitors who are ready to purchase something or who are in part of the buying process, then you won’t be able to monetize your site; and you won’t make any money.

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Why Am I Doing This Topic?

Posted by Sheila Conlin



Hooray for my capstone advisor for pushing me beyond my comfort zone. It truly is one of the best ways we learn and grow.
(Intellectually I know this - it's the implementation that is harder to come by if left to my own devices.)
I have been working on my skills to improve the layout of this blog for the past 5 days. And have been struggling with importing templates that end up having holes in the middle of them (and my limited skills prevent me from fixing them.) So I try a third and fourth template. And decide maybe the ones blogger supplies can be customized - just fine. I am struggling to create a look that is mine and mine alone. If you are reading this - you have seen my latest look. Please let me know what you think of it.
But the title to this blog is not referring to templates and colors and graphics. It's the topic that I've chosen for my final project as a graduate student in journalism at Georgetown. Why this one?


I am honored to be getting a degree from such a wonderful institution of higher learning. At the same time I feel obligated to come up with a research project that might help some of the people who want to work in the field I've enjoyed for more than 30 years. Journalism is a highly addictive way to make a living. But the industry is changing and there are fewer and fewer slots for the kind of journalism I do now or use to do when I worked in local TV newsrooms.

Statistics like this from the Pew report on the State of the News Media in 2010 - do not paint a pretty picture for TV news reporters in the future.

"Almost all the indicators for local TV are pointing down. Audiences continue to fall for newscasts across all timeslots. Revenue, too, was in a free fall. Looking ahead, most market analysts project revenues to grow only slightly, but that is hardly taken as good news given that it is a year that includes both the midterm elections and winter Olympic Games. Stations may be nearing a point where they can no longer add new newscasts or new revenue opportunities, such as sponsored segments, to their old ones."

All three of the people I'm profiling in this project use to WORK in local TV newsrooms. I worked with two of them IN local newsrooms. And thought all of them to be very brave to try a new venture in the unproven world of online news.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the Pew report reminds that there IS no model for making money in online news operations. But all of them have bills to pay - and families to feed. So they must be doing SOMETHING to make a living. Perhaps there is something we all can learn by looking at what they are trying to do.

I had a rough stretch where I lost my job after about 12 months of work - four years in a row. It was more than 10 years ago. But that feeling of being abandoned is always in the back of your mind. I read about people in local newsrooms who are encouraged to retire early or pick up a camera and do 2 or 3 jobs for less money then they had been making as a reporter and I think maybe this project could help them. I think of some of the students in my program who are 20-somethings or 30-somethings and I think - maybe they can benefit too.

Much of my research will be in written form. But since I've been producing stories with pictures and sound for decades, I feel as though some of my storytelling will have to be video stories.

Please share any stories you have along this line with me.

And stay tuned.

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Pew's view of News Media in 2010-specifically online news

Posted by Sheila Conlin

We know that advertising revenues are down for all kinds of news producers - newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and online. Local TV news and radio are the hardest hit - down 22% in 2009 - according to the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. Some of the drop they attribute to the sagging U-S economy. Some to the explosion of the Internet and the way people get news and information in this changing landscape.



They do not have figures for online NEWS websites. But they say online sites, as a group, only lost about 5% of their ad revenues. (They speculate news online sites "fared much worse.")

But some of the other statistics seem to tie into the research objective of this project. So I'll share some of them with you.

"And as we enter 2010 there is little evidence that journalism online has found a sustaining revenue model. A new survey on online economics, released in this report for the first time, finds that 79% of online news consumers say they rarely if ever have clicked on an online ad."

"But if a new model is to be found it is hardly clear what it will be. Our survey, produced with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, finds that only about a third of Americans (35%) have a news destination online they would call a "favorite," and even among these users only 19% said they would continue to visit if that site put up a pay-wall."

So if ads on the sides of your site are not the secret to making money with online news and information sites - perhaps we should consider widgets and social media tools. Another clip from the Pew report reads:

"So what about the new media experiments growing around the country? There are certainly exciting things happening, from former journalists creating specialty news sites and community sites, to citizens covering neighborhoods, local blogs and social media."

"In 2009, Twitter and other social media emerged as powerful tools for disseminating information and mobilizing citizens for purposes such as evading the censors in Iran and communicating from the earthquake disaster zone in Haiti. The majority of Internet users (59%) now use some kind of social media, including Twitter, blogging and networking sites, according to a new PEJ/Pew Internet & American Life survey."

There are a lot of other insights in the Pew report. If you'd like to read "more about it" - click here.


I am just gathering information for my capstone and thought you might want to see some of the information I'm finding as I go.

Stay tuned.

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Heading to Rhode Island

Posted by Sheila Conlin in

I recently had a conversation with my capstone advisor about this project and he reminded me of my desire to use my skills as a video journalist to contribute a bit of video story telling to this project. He's right. I DO love being a video story teller. So I will travel to Rhode Island to shoot video pictures and conduct interviews to see how Jim Hummel, one of my profile subjects, is trying to make a living doing investigative journalism online.

To be successful in the world of online journalism, I'm learning, you have to have a brand - which is often your name. And you have to be good at self promotion. I think this is one of Jim's strong suits. Here's how a Rhode Island magazine is portraying him.



He has a unique approach - from what I've seen so far. This is from his website:

"The Hummel Report is in 501 (c)3 non-profit application. We do not sell advertising. We sell good government and we only accept donations. Thank you for your support."

That's right - like giving grandma's dishes to Goodwill or donating a car to The Salvation Army - you can get a tax deduction for the contributions you make to his site. It's an approach that is worth exploring. Maybe there are some lessons to learn here for other journalists who will try and venture out on their own. I'll keep you posted on what I learn. The trip happens from Wednesday, March 31st till Friday, April 2nd. Then I'll need to look at my tape and write a story and track it and edit it. So you won't see if for a while. But it will be a story worth waiting for. Please come back to see it in a few weeks.

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