Infinite Path

It seems highly likely (although reports have yet to be confirmed) that Shiny Media has gone into administration today. Shiny Media created a range of very successful blogs back in 2004. They received backing from other companies, had millions of readers, a large team of writers and, until quite recently, were making a fair amount of money from advertising deals on all of their sites. However, it would appear that even this iconic network is not immune from the advertising downturn.

A few years ago, new blogs and blog networks, offering lots of quality content, were extremely popular with internet users and, as such, the advertising companies were prepared to pay for the traffic. Granted, they never paid a lot, but it was enough to sustain development while waiting for the big idea for an exit strategy. However, for some of these sites, and site owners, the big exit strategy never materialised. The advertising revenue dried up and many were left with popular websites with lots of traffic but no clear way of making any money.

So, what really is the future for making money online? Many major newspapers are also feeling the strain. Big UK broadsheets are able to drive huge traffic numbers to their site due to the amount of content they can provide, but they can’t come up with a way of making money from that traffic. With traditional printed media sales dropping by the day, it is essential that a way to monetise online becomes apparent before many of the best internet publishing operations fall by the wayside.

The internet is the future and the way we consume information is changing fast. There is an opening now for someone clever to figure out a way to make money online. If a sustainable revenue model can be created for websites that just publish content (and do not sell as well), maybe fewer networks and high-profile blogs will go under.