Blogs Turning to Newsletters for Revenue?

An interesting trend has started over the past couple days. This weekend Jason Calacanis announced the he was no longer blogging and was instead switching to a newsletter. Initially he suggested that he was limiting the number of subscribers to 750 but soon enough that number was surpassed and there is no sign that it’s stopping. Then today Caroline McCarthy published that Glam Media would be joining the newsletter market.

Blogs clearly have there limits when it comes to revenue and as such most blogs extend into events, as I wrote about the over the weekend. The other model is newsletters and while the majority of people stuck in the social media bubble argue that this in a bad idea due to e-mail overload, my guess is that the average person doesn’t have the same problems that many of the readers of this blog do.

Even if they do have e-mail overload, it’s clear that e-mail newsletters remain to be a viable business model. Just take a look at Daily Candy or Digital Media Wire. Both have developed substantial business models around newsletters and events. The best part of the newsletter business is that once you have subscribers they are much more locked in than a blog where you need to encourage readers to come back on a daily basis.

In the world on new media, developing a sustainable revenue model continues to prove to be challenging. Even still, numerous companies are trying to take a shot at it as the business models for traditional media outlets become shaky. All of this is a race toward what appears to be inevitable acquisition of the best developed new media companies.

Do you think newsletters will continue to be a legitimate business model or do you think the trend is toward blogs and other platforms?

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