The Secrets Of Drudge Inc.

from the how-to-make-money-in-online-content dept

Whether or not you like Matt Drudge and his website, you have to admit that he's built a very viable business for himself. How has he done it? While this article explains the specifics of how Drudge makes plenty of money, the simplest explanation is that he (unlike so many media organizations) has learned to really take advantage of the internet as a medium. He does stuff cheaper and faster than other news organizations, and that makes it easier for him to profit - all via advertising (even in this "advertising slump"). This is what the big companies don't get. They think they can simply move their current business model online, rather than taking advantage of the specific benefits of the internet.
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  • identicon
    Greg Spira, 3 Apr 2003 @ 1:23am

    Drudge and Internet Business

    It's more than that. Corporations simply aren't interested in a business plan that doesn't have huge growth potential. Drudge's profits, I'm sure, are quite satisfactory to him, but major corporations would rather lose a lot of money than spend their energy on efforts like Drudge's. Clearly, plenty of other folks - such as Harry Knowles - have succeeded on the web with similar models. Even today, without the first mover advantages that Drudge and others had, it's still quite possible for very small content operations on the web to succeed. But it's not a model that existing companies can follow.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    dorpus, 3 Apr 2003 @ 2:18am

    Parasitic Model

    Drudge has depended on the goodwill of other news organizations to provide him their information for free. Drudge has no reporters, produces no news on its own. If other news organizations wanted to, they could demand licensing fees or copyright infringements or whatever else, and Drudge will go the way of Napster.

    Drudge is also depending on popup/banner ads for revenue, but as popup/banner blockers become more common, we'll see if his revenue won't also disappear.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2003 @ 10:29am

      Re: Parasitic Model

      Um, yeah, but why would the news orgs want to stop Drudge from driving huge amounts of traffic to their sites? The article cited the example of the New York Press, which got into a spat with Drudge which led to him removing the link to their page, causing them to lose a lot of traffic.

      It really helps to read the article before responding...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        dorpus, 3 Apr 2003 @ 12:45pm

        Re: Parasitic Model

        Classic case of collusion theory. Yes, if only one or a few news organization take issue with linking, Drudge wins. But if most news organizations decide they want to get rid of the parasites, Drudge loses.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2003 @ 3:10pm

          Re: Parasitic Model

          Put the crack pipe down - you have no idea what you're talking about

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Tom, 5 Apr 2003 @ 10:53am

          Re: Parasitic Model

          You gotta be kidding me, all that has happenned is that Drudge is the middleman. News companies create the product, buyers do not want to filter through the immense material that is out there, so they go the Drudge to filter the info. This drives traffic to the sellers, and Drudge takes his cut by selling advertising space on his site. People forget, but he essentially gave away his product for years to build his clientele.

          The reality is that there are 100's of more precise competitors to Drudge out there, and they will slowly diminish his franchise.

          It is amazing how economic models work, from selling widgets to media on the internet...

          Tom

          link to this | view in chronology ]


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