The Next Level
Over the last two weeks I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future of PaulStamatiou.com. It has been around for over 2 years, served up over 4 million pages (1 million of those in the last 4 months), amassed over 15,000 comments over 850+ posts and grown a dedicated readership. PaulStamatiou.com has always just been a hobby as I’m passionate about everything technology related, but I have been wondering if I could take this site from hobby to something more.
I took advantage of LinkedIn’s Answers feature and asked my professional network a question related to this and acquiring corporate sponsorship to help me grow PaulStamatiou.com. For the record, LinkedIn Answers works extremely well. I received about 20 responses from the ~150 contacts that received my question; everything from “how much money do you need” to well-constructed emails about optimizing advertising to lure sponsors. After receiving some great advice from a friend, I turned down any thoughts of taking funding as I don’t want to give up equity/percentage profits of my business, especially this early.
Contrary to popular belief, I make almost no money from this blog. At one point I made good money from paid reviews but it quickly became apparent that you guys don’t like paid reviews, so I stopped doing them. I’ve talked to the big ad networks and tried other monetization strategies within reason (I will never whore out my site with throngs of ads), all without much luck.
Why am I looking to professionalize PaulStamatiou.com just now? I have about a year left in school. If I actively begin building my blog, I might be able to make it successful enough to potentially become a full-time gig by the time I graduate. If not, no worries, it’s risk-free and I’ll just do a startup with friends in the valley.
Let’s backtrack to my childhood for second. Even 10 years ago I still thought it would be great to work for a tech publication, receive the latest gadgets before they come out, take them for a test drive and write about them. Things haven’t changed, other than the fact that I’d prefer doing my own thing online instead of in a print publication. This site is about quality over quantity and it will always be. Talking with others familiar with the tech industry, there is a void in my field. The larger tech sites/blogs have “turned to crap” to quote an older friend in the field. Everyone’s got an agenda and a quota to fulfill; there aren’t too many “free spirits” when it comes to tech writing, which is why sites like John Gruber’s Daring Fireball receive so much acclaim.
Take for example the time I reviewed the Sonos music system, one of the longer and more in-depth reviews on this site. Here’s what Sonos had to say after they saw my (unpaid and I had to send the Sonos back) review:
Paul man - jesus - what a review. Thanks a ton. Glad that our hype lived up to your experience.
That’s the type of feedback I thrive on and motivates me to pump out quality content. I know I’ve been going off on a tangent, so I’ll get back to the point.
Here are things that will be happening around PaulStamatiou.com in the near future:
- Professionalism. More of the same great content but in a structured environment. I have applied for a DBA for PaulStamatiou.com and published a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service (see footer). In a nutshell, any data collected by the server/software such as IP and email address will not be given to any parties unless requested by law enforcement via subpeona. Also website visitors agree to not post obscene or libelous comments or spam.
- Your Feedback. I plan on building out a section of this site dedicated to receiving your immediate feedback and suggestions for the type of content you would like to see as well as particular articles you want me to write. “User Generated Content Suggestions” if you will. Once I perfect the technology I will release it for use on other sites (has something to do with that patent I was trying to apply for).
- Reviews. I don’t have the money to purchase all the gadgets and gizmos I would enjoy reviewing but I will make a proactive effort to get in touch with PR contacts to get hold of hot ticket items for review.
- Usability. I’m thinking about different ways to make it easier for new users to find worthy, older articles. After they leave the homepage, they are often lost from public sight. This should also help boost pageviews, which would help me join a larger ad network.
- Pitch Myself. Rather than pursue advertising on other influential tech sites, I believe that increasing PSTAM awareness could be done by pitching myself to newspapers and other websites for profile-type pieces. Yeah, I know it sounds kind of lame to pitch myself but hearing about my site on say the NYT would be better for readership than an ad on TechCrunch. My oldest sister works in PR so I’ll be taking some advice from her.
- Corporate Sponsors. I am talking with a few companies about providing corporate sponsorship during this growth period.
I also have some small ideas floating around like hiring a developer to write an Amazon FPS script that would make it incredibly easy for readers to donate in micro-payments if they wish. This will eliminate the weekly “Paul, your article was a lifesaver! How can I donate?” emails.
What are your thoughts?
Paul,
I would love to see you do this and succeed at it. You have one of the better tech blogs to be found on this planet. The so-called A-listers have definitely gone to crap, largely because of their quota mentality I think.
I have learned a lot from your site and it is one of the few that I really look forward to reading.
I wish you the best with this. I think you are right to not let your equity get away before it is built. Corporate sponsorship sounds like a good approach.
Beeing 21 years old, and achived what you have done. Is just awesome!
I think one step ahead, would be to increase the feed subscribers. You got only(well, many) 6k readers, and that is a tiny difference compared to Engadget (I know, not compareable).
Also, please remove some of the text in your sidebar. It is okay if a line has one or two words. But when there is 26 lines with complete sentences. It makes it abit hard to focas on what is really the content.
As a finish, I will bid you all the luck you can get. I believe that you can manage it, and I will continue to read your feed.
PS. You barcamp image is in a low res :P
Paul — go for it man. You’ve got a knack for writing thoughtful, insightful posts, and I for one don’t mind you taking sponsorship or an increase in ads. I’d even buy a subscription a la Daring Fireball if you offered one.
Paul,
Best of luck to you! I think a lot people would love to do something like you are describing. I enjoy reading your blog and look forward to see where it’s going.
Nice man. I’m excited to see you develop this into something huge. Time to take out CNET, Ars Technica, or one of the hundreds of used-to-be-cool-but-now-suck tech review and commentary sites.
I stopped reading Techcrunch because of you ;)
Hey Paul,
I’ve been an avid reader of your site for some time now. You are definitely one of my favorite tech writers. I always look forward to your great and informative posts. Keep up the great work! I can’t wait to see the future of this website…it sounds awesome.
That’s a great idea, and you will probably very successful. Just keep the good work, or try to improve it.
It’s a great idea and I know you have what it takes to do it. You unusually combine a shrewd approach to inoovation, openness to suggestions and lack of pretension which I find is prtty unusually in this sector.
Good luck!!
Dear Paul - Glad to hear you are taking things to the next level. I read all of my blogs (67) through gReader save Guy Kawasaki. He draws me out of the reader and to his physical blog due to everything else going on around it. You have the same ability and idea. More than once you have drawn me out of the reader and to your page to get a better look (vibe) on what you are talking about. Keep up the great work. You definitely have a pulse on what’s going on in the world of tech and have made me look good when talking to colleagues. Keep it up and look forward to going on your journey with you.
Continue to push the quality over quantity. Your blog is one of the few that I will actually read more than the title of a post, regardless of the title! Best of luck.
Paul, good luck with your plan, there’s already a PHP Library for Amazon FPS, see this:
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?entryID=904
@Andre - I used that library the day it came out.. had some problems with it. I didn’t find it too helpful, which is why I’d rather find someone that’s a pro with FPS.
More kudos from me. I’ve stopped reading most of my other blogs. Your stuff is clear, concise, and spread out along the spectrum so I pick up new bits of things I’ve heard about, along with many I wouldn’t see in my normal reading.
Thanks.
Hmmmm - can’t really fault your thoughts and ideas, but I do question whether full time blogging is really going to satisfy you in the long run and be the best use of your obvious talents and abilities?
Apart from that good luck - and I will email you direct with some more specific suggestions and thoughts on how you can grow your ‘business’ as that is what I do for a living :-)
I totally agree with you about those larger blogs. They’ve just lost their personal touch, and many have 6+ writers. I’m launching a new Tech/Web 2.0 blog in 4 days, and maybe it’s a crowded niche, but I hope that I’ll stand out in the fact that I can do what the bigger blogs are doing, but without losing the personal touch, etc.
I’d also like to make enough money from my blogging, so it can be my full-time job. I really appreciate what your trying to do - You want to make money from this blog, but without having all sorts of junk ads, etc.
Thats the hardest thing to do, as it’s so easy to through up just any banner, or paid post.
I’d encourage you to keep looking for a corporate sponsor, there’s got to be companies out there that would like to sponsor a blog 200k+ page-view-per-month, 5500+ rss feed readers. It might take a while to find but I’m sure theres one.
As for your donation problem..why do you want to use amazon FPS? Why not paypal? is it because they take way to much of the money? I got an $18.00 paypal payment the other day paypal took $1.50 off!
BTW, can’t help you with FPS, everytime I read your blog I get another thing I need to learn. :-)
Paul, what a great idea! I can’t wait to watch this grow and see your website succeed!
And, you know what? If it doesn’t work out, so what! We’ll all still be here, reading everyday.
Good luck!!
Excellent idea Paul… go for it!
I’m particularly interested in seeing the ‘user generated content suggestion’!
Oh, and would you mind explaining how you went about doing the privacy policy/TOS? Also, does it only cover the US?
I also like the privacy policy and TOS, Paul. If you used a form, would be good if you could point to it. If an original creation, you might also want to consider getting a law degree, too.
Paul, this is exactly what you need to do. Your site was an <a href="http://www.truebluetitan.com/inspiration/what-motivates-you">inspiration</a> for me to launch mine in the new manner that I did. You've got a lot of talent and an already accomplished subscriber base. Go for it. What have you to lose!
@Bruce - Automattic/WordPress’ Privacy Policy and TOS are both offered under a Share-Alike/Attribution CC license so I was able to adapt it to my own needs.
In my (admittedly limited) experience, a high number of posts yields high traffic, which in turns brings about higher ad revenue. Unfortunately, this model basically guarantees low-quality content, to the point that the entire article content can be surmised from the title. The other problem is that these high-volume site generate so many headlines that I don’t care dig through to find the valuable content (see the RSS feeds from Gizmodo and Digg for examples.)
I think there is definitely a market for tech blogs that detail to readers exactly what they need to know and cover only topics they find interesting. It takes a great writer with similar interests to the readers to make this happen. The high-volume sites will never be able to do this.
I too have wondered how someone might successfully monetize this type of low-volume/high-quality blog in a volume-driven advertising economy. I wish I had the answer, but to tell you the truth, your site is one of the few I read where I feel the author is more of an expert than I am in the topic at hand.
If you want some high-quality advise, send an e-mail Walt Mossberg. I think your site is a more technologically-sophisticated/narrower-audience version of what he does. And I can’t think of a better role model in the tech witting arena.
Paul,
I’ve had your site in my RSS for awhile now, and I have to say that every time you show up with a new post, it is the first thing I go to read.
You’ve got a ton of great stuff going for you, and I’m pretty sure whatever you end up doing you will be successful at it.
Thanks for the great content!
@Paul,
Thanks for the info on Share Alike. Time for me to read up on it and Creative Commons.
And again, my best wishes for your success. I am personally confident you will meet your goals. You have a superior technical knowledge, and excellent writing style, and an almost contagious enthusiasm. Take advantage of all of these. I can assure that enthusiasm dwindles too easily as you age, and my relative lack of it (at 58 years old) does hamper my writing. Reading your material helps inspire me a good bit, but I do not think I will ever again have the enthusiasm that you are blessed with. Take advantage of it and you will succeed.
Go for it!
Go for it man! I know how corny this will sound, but honestly a lot about your situation is pretty inspiring to me. I’m just a couple years younger than you, 19, and an aspiring writer/blogger and absolute tech enthusiast. I don’t know what my future holds, but it will likely involve journalism and/or teaching people about things I’m interested in - namely tech stuff! So I sort of look at you and your work and think, “Ok, that’s about what I’m aiming for.” Not necessarily the exact same thing, but the same amount of success.
Anyhow, rambling aside, I think your ideas for taking this blog to the next level are right on track. I’m looking forward to seeing how this evolves. Good luck!
Paul,
Your plan sounds solid. I have been reading your site for about 6 months now, and it actually inspired to revamp my own site. I am now writing actively, whereas before things were stale and I did not devote enough time to new content. Good luck with this new plan!
I would recommend starting a new site under a new domain. One day you may want to move on to something else. You would be limiting your opportunities if you continued to grow paulstamatiou.com.
How much do you think michaelarrington.com is worth vs techcrunch.com?
@Merrick - the thing is this I will always be the only writer and this site is a kind of portfolio for me. I don’t ever see getting a new domain (unless of course I acquire paul.com). That and it would kill my traffic for a long time… going from a technorati top 100 ranked domain to a new domain that is.
TechCrunch has many authors so it makes sense for it to not be eponymous after Michael Arrington.
However, you bring up a good point that has crossed my mind several times. When I get to that fork in the road I’ll decide what to do with it.
10 points out of 10 for style for using ‘eponymous’ in a sentence.
@Kevin :-)
Not to jump on a throwaway line that’s not part of the main theme of your post, but jeez, Paul:
How about sticking around in Atlanta and doing that startup here? Tech is churning out the talent, and Merrick and I will find you the money. (Right, Merrick? :-)
Yeah Paul, you have an epic amount of readers. Obviously because you are excellent about keeping the tech world relevant and interesting to your readers. I certainly hope it works out for you since i certainly enjoy reading your blog.
I think that there is no shame in making money out of your successful site. Especially since if you can make money from it, we will all benefit by getting more posts, i.e. you won’t be distracted by work politics, etc…and will give us all a better service. I wish you all the luck I can.
i say do what you love… if you do it just for the money you will burn out fast. if you do/write/report on what you truly enjoy, then you will do and good job (better than others) and the money will come.. otherwise you’re just another sell out.