Want to start a blog and not coming up with enough ideas? Take a look at the blogs listed on Blogger Stories. You may just get some fresh ideas.

But beware, you may also get caught up reading the blogs and before you realize it, half the day is over.

There are tons of ways to get ideas for blog posts. When you see something that catches your attention, do yourself a favor and write it down in a notebook. Call it your “Blog Ideas” notebook. The next time you’re out of ideas, you can go back to your handy dandy notebook and use one of thoese ideas.

Technorati Tags: ideas for blogs, blogger stories, blog ideas

Popularity: 61% [?]

Danny Choo is a blogger who has nearly 10 million pageviews and 56,610 unique visitors PER DAY in Oct. 07 (see his Oct stats here). What draws visitors to the blog is content and DannyChoo.com has tons of it, some of which are user-generated. The blog is primarily drawing anime fans and folks who came through the various stormtrooper videos posted on YouTube. (Hint, hint - that’s a good way to draw traffic to your blog if you have something funny that you can post on YouTube)

Yeah… videos like this one:

Revenue generation is through AdSense where he uses a revenue sharing model. Affiliate sales also generate revenues for the site.

So what are the earnings for DannyChoo.com?

Here are some quotes from the site:

“Google Adsense is actually the lowest generating form of income for me.”

“On a good day I get about 50 USD and make enough from it to pay for all my monthly bills (hosting, telephone, electric, gas yada yada), my monthly mags and a few figures.”

“The most I have ever made through all my affiliate programs is just over 1000 USD per day last December (06) - my next goal is to keep it a steady 1000 by Q4 of this year - nearly there. ”

Since these data are a bit dated (from around April 07 or thereabouts), going by the reported affliate+AdSense earnings, I’m guessing that the site is now making around $40,000 - $50,000 per month.

Danny used to work for companies like Amazon and Microsoft before deciding to venture out on his own. He is using the earnings from his blog to fund his company rather than taking money from VCs. You should definitely check out his site and learn from his success.

Technorati Tags: Danny Choo, blog earnings

Popularity: 80% [?]

Better known as AshBo on her MySpace profile, Ashley Qualls is the owner of the website Whateverlife.com. Her success has been featured in Fast Company. She’s just 17 and has already achieved a lot of financial success with her website. It just goes to show that anyone with enough passion and know-how, at the right place and the right time can do it.

Here’s an excerpt of the article:

“At 17 going on 37 (at least), Ashley is very much an Internet professional. In the less than two years since Whateverlife took off, she has dropped out of high school, bought a house, helped launch artists such as Lily Allen, and rejected offers to buy her young company. Although Ashley was flattered to be offered $1.5 million and a car of her choice–as long as the price tag wasn’t more than $100,000–she responded, in effect, Whatever. “I don’t even have my license yet,” she says.”

So what does 7 million unique visitors and 60 million pageviews translate to in terms of revenues? Ashley reportedly rakes in around $70,000 per month. Revenue is mainly from advertising to the target market - teenage girls who want to customize their own MySpace page.

Content

In terms of content, there are tutorials on just about everything you need to know about MySpace. You can also grab layouts, banners, fonts, glitters, buttons, etc. The homepage of WhateverLife also features music videos. Leveraging the reach of the site, Ashley has also helped to launch the music careers of Lily Allen and the Jonas Brothers.

Site Growth

Ashbo has surely been keeping busy. To further leverage her brand, she has also launched WhateverLife Magazine, ShopWhateverLife.com and the SnazzyBoot forum.

The sites are growing so fast that she is even hiring for help.

So the lesson here is that you don’t have to have a lot of experience to start being successful at a young age. What you need to have is a passion for something and focus on that passion. The money will follow. If it doesn’t, hey, at least you’re doing something you love.

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Technorati Tags: whateverlife.com, ashley qualls, ashbo, myspace layouts

Popularity: 58% [?]

Blogging can generate some serious cash these days, although most of the time the business model is one based on selling ads. Will this bubble go the way of the banner ads that were so popular during the first Internet bubble? Some of the ad rates can be quite outrageous and makes one wonder if the advertisers are really measuring the return on investment generated from those ads. Anyway, in case this bubble pops, you should definitely consider other business models for your blog as well.

Here are some impressive figures as reported in BusinessWeek:

BoingBoing - over $1 million last year

Advertising costs range from $350 to display a small button ad for one week to between $2,000 and $3,000 for the minimum 170,000 impressions on banner ads, all sold exclusively through Federated Media. Frequent posting—the four authors update the site 20 to 40 times each day.

I Can Has CheezBurger - Estimated $5,600 a month

ShoeMoney - $12,000 a month (that’s only from the blog alone)

OverHeardinNewYork - $8,100 a month

Kottke.org - Estimated $5,300 a month

TalkingPointsMemo - $45,000 a month

Perez Hilton - $111,000 a month

…24 posts on an average day—and as many as 40 on a day with talk of a Britney Spears meltdown…

Gothamist - $50,000 - $60,000 a month (for the entire blog network)

TechCrunch - $200,000 a month (holy smokes!)

TechCrunch became Michael Arrington’s full-time business in 2006, with $200,000 in monthly revenue from job boards and ads.

Go Fug Yourself - $6,240 a month

Mashable - $166,000 a month

Pete Cashmore started Mashable two years ago, to write about the emerging trend of mashups, which he defines as “the fusing of multiple Web services.” Text ads start at $100 per week, banners at $2,000.

Problogger - over $100,000 a year (multiple sites)

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Technorati Tags: blog earnings, highest earning blogs, popular blogs, blog business models

Popularity: 60% [?]

Eric Nakagawa’s story about accidentally stumbling into blogging for profits is quite inspiring. Here’s an excerpt from the BusinessWeek article:

Eric Nakagawa, a software developer in Hawaii, posted a single photo of a fat, smiling cat he found on the Internet, with the caption, “I can has cheezburger?” in January, 2007, at a Web site he created. It was supposed to be a joke. Soon after he posted a few more images in the same vein: cute cats with funny captions written in a silly, invented hybrid of Internet shorthand and baby-talk.

As traffic started increasing, the income from advertising he sold on the blog became significant, so much so that he quit his job as a programmer.

He saw traffic on the blog, I Can Has Cheezburger, which he runs with his partner, “Tofuburger” (she refuses to disclose her real name) double each month: 375,000 hits in March, 750,000 in April, 1.5 million in May. Cheezburger now gets 500,000 page views a day from between 100,000 and 200,000 unique visitors, according to Nakagawa. The cheapest ad costs $500 for a week. The most expensive goes for nearly $4,000.

After reading this, start thinking about ways you can replicate his success. If he can do it, why can’t you?

Technorati Tags: blog entrepreneurs, blogger earnings, full-time blogging

Popularity: 49% [?]

Starting a blog that’s a parody of another popular blog can be quite profitable, as in the case of JohnCow.com which rides on the popularity of the (in)famous JohnChow.com. In their first month alone, they made over $1000.

It’s not exactly clear who are the perpetrators behind the blog, but I suspect that they are European from the way they use commas instead of decimal points for reporting dollar amounts, i.e. $10,00 vs. $10.00. In any case, this is a blog that is well thought out - unique icon in the address bar, the whole cow theme, cow pictures, cow related terms like “if you liked this post, buy us some milk” rather than just “donate to us” and my favorite of all is the tag line: “The miscellaneous ramblings of Dot Com Moooguls”.

One factor that contributed to the rise of this blog is the fact that while many people like the posts of John Chow on his blog that is usually filled with ads and affiliate links, there are others that are intensely put off by it. It’s the latter camp that has given JohnCow.com a boost by posting in the forums about this new blog that is a parody of JohnChow.com. As is usually the case, controversy can bring buzz to a new site and this is what we see with JohnCow.com.

Sidenote: In recent days, John Chow has apparently lost favor with Google. Doing a search for “John Chow” on Google shows that the site is nowhere to be found on the first page of results. However, JohnCow.com is listed in the #5 spot.

Technorati Tags: John Cow, John Chow, parody blogs

Popularity: 19% [?]

If you’re want to start blogging but you’re not sure what to blog about, consider charting a journey towards a goal. It could be any type of goal, for example, financial (make $XXX dollars by 2010), health (lose 20 pounds in 6 months) or creative (get article published in Inc. magazine).

One excellent example of such a type of blog is the personal finance blog or pfblog where the author chronicles his journey towards achieving $1 million dollars in net worth. The blog is very popular and has over 35,000 readers subscribing to its feed. It has also been mentioned a few times in the popular media (i.e. magazines, newspapers).

The blog is monetized by Google AdSense, affiliate products and also text link advertising. But if you’re starting out, don’t worry about monetizing it at first. Concentrate on the main message you’re trying to convey and focus on building readership.

Why does the PFblog work?

1. There is a progress update in the header of the blog. This keeps readers interested. They will come back again and again to check on the progress. This means repeat traffic which is a good thing.

2. The is a clear background statement (the “About” page) where the aim of the author is clearly stated.

3. Related posts are listed (he uses “Best of PFBlog”) where new readers can catch up to the current progress.

4. Simple layout and uniform color scheme.

What I don’t like about it is that it is a bit crowded with too many things on the page and a LOT of advertising. There are two blocks of Google AdSense ads right below the header. You can see how he is aiming to get at the $1 million net worth.

If you want to take this idea and run with it, brainstorm about some unique goal that you think will attract readers. The more outrageous the goal, the better. I’ve heard of one guy who wanted to visit 1000 bars in one year. For example, your goal could be to meet Paris Hilton in person and have dinner with her. You can chronicle how you would go about achieving that goal. Think people will want to read about it? You bet!

You can get more ideas by asking people what they want to achieve in life.

Technorati Tags: PFBlog, what to blog about, starting a blog, chart your journey

Popularity: 18% [?]

Want to be inspired by bloggers who are successfully making money with their blogs? John Chow of johnchow.com shows a breakdown of his earningsfrom his blog and how they are growing month by month.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Want to know what topics to blog about? Check out the list of niche blogs from the Clear Digital Media network. They have blogs about dogs, bikers, genealogy, junk food, slot machines and get this - strange new products. Goes to show that you can blog about, well, practically anything!

Technorati Tags: niche blogs

Popularity: 14% [?]

Here’s another blog network to watch - Shiny Media. Among the blogs maintained by this network are Mobile Digest, a mobile phone blog, and The Bag Lady, a shopping blog. These blogs make money mainly from Google AdSense and affiliate marketing. As you look at some of the blogs, take note of how they integrate pictures and ads to make the presentation aesthetically pleasing.

Popularity: 13% [?]