---
title: "My Million Dollar Blog"
date: 2005-10-09
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# My Million Dollar Blog

[Tristan Louis did the numbers](https://web.archive.org/web/20060116094847/http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/Doing_the_numbers_on_the_AOL-WeblogsInc_deal) on the AOL-WeblogsInc deal. My blog Read/WriteWeb has 1,938 inbound links on Technorati as of today, so according to Tristan’s calculations Read/WriteWeb is **worth over $1 million.**

OK, so there were other factors that contributed to the weblogsinc deal – the value of network effects etc. But I certainly believe there is value in a *quality weblog*. I have some other ideas on this too, in regards to networks. But I just wanted to put it out there that I’m open to offers of $1 million or over 🙂

**UPDATE:** Scott Kidder, who works at weblogsinc competitor Gawker Media, has [published some data](https://web.archive.org/web/20060116094847/http://www.scottkidder.com/2005/10/how_many_blogs.php) he compiled on weblogsinc. Out of 75 WIN sites he studied, only 31 are what he classifies as “active”.

To be honest, the figures don’t really interest me. As I commented below, I’m kind of half joking in this post and I don’t fully correlate my blog with any in the WIN network. But there is a serious point to my post: I think there is value in a quality topic-focused blog that has a reasonable readership. The value may be increased by belonging to a network of similarly focused and quality blogs. I think the market for quality networks is under-served. Arguably John Battelle’s FM Publishing will serve this market and 9rules network is on the right track too. But there’s more work to be done.

Also I like to think that it’s not just network owners, like weblogsinc and Gawker, which have something of value. This is perhaps being recognized now that we’re hearing of [VC interest in certain blogs](https://web.archive.org/web/20060116094847/http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2005/10/the_ac_has_hear.html). In a network of quality topic-focused blogs, the real value is with the writers – they’re creating the quality. So it’s a different model to the one Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton have been running. Well… Peter Rojas, who is WIN’s main blogger with [Engadget](https://web.archive.org/web/20060116094847/http://www.engadget.com/), got a pretty good deal. He was mainly responsible for the quality product that is Engadget – and turns out he had equity so he got justly rewarded. But what I’m thinking of is more like small groups of topic-focused blog networks, composed of high quality blogs. This will help each blog get a larger audience, which will lead to better advertising rates, etc. This isn’t a new idea of course (ref FM Publishing, 9rules), but there is much more to be done.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/my_million_doll.php))*