In much the same way I used to quiz my grandmother about how she survived the Great Depression, a younger colleague recently asked me what online journalism was like in the 1990s (we started Slate in 1996). As I started to talk about it, I realized that the journalism itself hasn’t changed that much—blah blah social media, blah blah interactives, blah blah longform—but what has changed is the money. There didn’t used to be any. Now there’s a lot.
As an exercise, I made myself two lists: all the sources of revenue I can remember for 1998 digital journalism and all the sources of revenue I can remember for 2014 digital journalism. I’m not exactly sure what they explain, but I suspect it’s a lot.
In 1998, the sources of revenue for online journalism were:
- Funding from some rich person
- Funding from some rich company that was making a long-shot bet
- Banner ads
- Really bad subscription schemes
- Some lead-generation business (as Jim Ledbetter reminded me)
In 2014, the sources of revenue for digital journalism are:
- Funding from some rich person (e.g., eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media)
- Funding from some rich company that is making a long-shot bet (e.g., some of Bloomberg’s ventures)
- Ads from real (i.e., not network) advertisers
- Ad network ads
- AdSense ads from Google
- Outbrain-style links to other people’s content that pays when readers click it
- Native advertising
- Make the native ads yourself and get a production fee
- Build a microsite for the native content and get paid separately for that
- Subscription (no content unless you pay)
- Paywall (some content, then you have to pay, à la the New York Times)
- Micropayment (pay for each individual piece of content)
- Membership (content is free, but bonus stuff—discounts, Easter eggs—for members; e.g., Slate Plus!)
- Tablet-only subscriptions
- Paid app
- Tip jar (asking for support without perks)
- Kindle subscriptions
- Sell swag and merchandise directly to readers.
- Amazon Associates revenue (via links in stories)
- Amazon Associates revenue where you assign stories about products in order to get the sales cut
- Sell your own merchandise but through a company that fulfills it and pays you a cut (e.g., Café Press)
- Lead generation—send a reader who becomes a customer, get paid
- Syndicate stories to other digital publishers to run on their sites
- Syndicate stories to print publications
- Syndication for textbooks/academia (e.g., PARS)
- LexisNexis
- Syndicate content for advertiser’s microsite
- Public events—ticket revenue
- Public events—corporate sponsor revenue
- Conferences for professionals—ticket revenue
- Conferences—other forms of sponsorship (badge sponsorship, mobile service sponsorship)
- Paid parties: Readers pay to socialize with you
- Conferences—booths/expo revenue
- Events as sales spiel—bring people in for content of event, then sell them something
- Native events—events put on for advertiser
- Foundation funds journalism on a favorite subject
- University funds journalism on a favored subject
- Donations from foundations not tied to a particular project
- Mobile banner ads
- Mobile and tablet interstitials
- Video ads from real advertisers
- Network video ads
- Google/YouTube pays to have you create video
- YouTube video revenue share
- Podcast ads—not host-read
- Podcast ads, host-read, paid for click-through/sign ups
- Podcast ads, host read, not paid for performance
- Podcast festivals
- Podcasts created for sponsors
- Cruises for readers
- Teach classes for readers or other journalists
- Webinars
- Sell photo archives both digitally and as prints
- Publish physical books of your digital content
- Kindle singles and other e-books
- Sell unusual books for non-Amazon publishers, as Slate did with this Ursula LeGuin book
- Sell movie and TV rights
- Product placement—get paid for using products and reviewing them
- Use your Google page rank power to put in links to other places and get paid for referrals (which undoubtedly infuriates Google)
- Sponsored tweets
- Get paid to make Facebook posts on a particular subject.
- Ads in emails
- Kickstarter fundraising (à la 99 Percent Invisible)
- Build apps for people
- Higher-end specialized product (e.g., Politico Pro)
- Targeted research for subscribers who pay a premium (e.g., BI Intelligence)
- Create viral content for advertisers and charge for virality in a BuzzFeed-y manner
- Get people to sign up for an email list for an advertiser, as Upworthy does
- Sell your subscriber data
- Sell your email lists
- Build a platform, put great journalism on it, and sell the platform (e.g., the Atavist)
- Wine Clubs
- Sell access to archives (hat tip: Joe Turner)
- Get government funding to create journalism, e.g., USAID (hat tip: Joe Turner again)
- More than a tip jar—straight-up donations, à la Brainpickings and NPR (hat tip: David Harvey)
- White papers
