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For One Lawyer, Blogging Brings Big Bucks
Few lawyers launch a blog with the goal of earning income from it. But if your blog begins to pull in a quarter-million a month in revenue, who's to complain? Such is the case with TechCrunch, the blog started by lawyer Michael Arrington. Arrington is what some people might call a "recovering lawyer." After graduating from Stanford law school in 1995 and paying his dues as a corporate lawyer at O'Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini, he left law practice and became a serial entrepreneur, working with a string of Internet startups and founding two of his own.
In 2005, Arrington started TechCrunch, his blog about Internet startups, as a hobby. But, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday, he latched onto something big. "TechCrunch became the go-to site for the scoop on new Web companies," said Chronicle writer Sam Zuckerman. "And, as technophiles flocked to TechCrunch, advertisers followed suit. Arrington's blog morphed from a labor of love into a fast-growing business."
So fast that the blog now has a CEO and a full-time staff of eight. Wikipedia says it is the fourth most popular blog on the Interent, and the Chronicle reports that it brings in $240,000 a month in advertising, not to mention additional revenue from conferences and events. Even though Arrington started the blog as a hobby, it soon became clear to him "that I could make more money blogging than from anything else."
Lest every lawyer hope to replicate Arrington's success, be assured that his case is the exception, not the rule. For lawyers, of course, the pay-off from blogging is more likely to be indirect -- in the increased exposure it brings and, through that exposure, new business.
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on October 22, 2007 at 06:23 PM | Permalink
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