Jason Calacanis

MIT's Technology Review chronicles the case of Weblogs Inc. cofounders Brian Alvey and Jason McCabe Calacanis (via paidcontent), to examine whether blogs can become media platforms capable of making money - and legitimate alternatives to the business models of existing media companies. Planned as a network of more than 300 blogs targeting niche markets in technology, media, entertainment, and consumer goods, Weblogs Inc. is a network of 80 blogs. It is generating a steady stream of revenue from network ads and direct ads.

The network ads are automatically served by Google and Tribal Fusion, and direct ads are the result of contracts with such advertisers as Volvo, Equifax, Pacific Poker, Palm, and Subaru. According to Calacanis, the majority of the company's revenues come from direct ads, which currently command a CPM rateof between $4 and $12, whereas network ads generate between $1 and $4 CPM.

Weblogs Inc generates more than $1,000 per day from Google AdSense alone and has recently surged as high as $2,000. More than half of Weblogs' advertisers end up buying space on more than one of the network's blogs, says Calacanis, but to interest a direct advertiser, a blog's traffic must exceed one million page views per month.