The Hindu Business Line : Making a living through blogging

What started as a hobby or passion is fast turning into a means to rake in the moolah. As blogs witness mind-boggling hits and reach out to more people with interests in specific areas such as travel, technology and health, they have also caught the attention of advertisers.

With companies such as Google seeing the opportunity and bringing together bloggers and advertisers, bloggers have started depending on the forum for their full time or part-time income.

Take the case of Mr Amit Agarwal, whose technology blog `Digital Inspiration' attracts over a million visitors per month. Over the last two and half years, it has become his bread and butter.

"While there are risks involved depending on external factors such as number of viewers on your blog, it is certainly better than working as a software engineer with a private company," says Mr Agarwal.

Similarly, India Uncut — a blog with India-specific content — by Mr Amit Varma has become an income generator. A freelance journalist writing for The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal, Mr Varma is able to supplement his monthly take home as India Uncut lures around two lakh visitors per month. Blog Sulekha too is attracting a large number of on its travel forum.

Google, which provides individuals software to start their own blogs, confirms that bloggers are increasingly using their blogs to multiply their money. "With Google Adsense, bloggers are using their blogs to get advertisements. So as bloggers sign up with Adsense, the blogs get scanned and is allotted relevant ads. Depending upon the clicks the ad generates on a particular blog, the revenue gets shared between Google and the blogger, explains Head of Sales, Google India, Mr Sundararaman K.

Others companies too are looking at the blogger space. MIH Web has launched the `Great Indian Blogger hunt' where the company has announced cash prizes of Rs 5,000-80,000 to India's top 100 bloggers.

"We'll be giving prizes every month starting February 15 and may extend the prize to 1,000 bloggers. Later, we would share revenues with specific content bloggers as companies seek that content," says Mr Arunava Sinha, Chief Product Officer, MIH Web.

"It is estimated that blogs constitute about 5 per cent of the online advertising market and this is expected to double in the coming year. Also as individuals with a common background, exchange their blogs with others, advertisers use it for peer-to-peer marketing" said Mr Manas Gulati, Tyroo, a company for online advertising.