While it certainly wasn’t intentional, I believe I have walked into a good business model with my blog. Everybody wants to have a job where they love their work. This can lead to less stress and a nice work/life balance. When you are doing what you love, it doesn’t feel like work and you can perform at a higher level than if you wanted to be doing something else.
When I started my blog a couple years ago, the goal was to help people learn about the domain investment industry. At the time, there were just a few strictly domaining blogs, and I thought I could offer a different perspective than the other bloggers. I hated posting in the public domain forums, and I figured I would start up a blog where I could post commentary and insight as I continued to grow my business, and it would be cool if I could learn from others as I shared what I was learning.
Along the way, I have experimented with many strategies, met with some of the most successful leaders in our industry, and have learned quite a bit about the industry and related industries. I have done my best to share what I’ve learned, some of which has been successful and some of which hasn’t been so successful. I’ve received considerable support, people continue to read my blog, and traffic numbers seem to increase just about every month. As a result, I have been able to sell advertising space on my blog to companies in our industry and related industries.
Although my blog doesn’t generate the majority of my revenue, the revenue has been increasing, and it’s beginning to pay for the time I contribute to keep the blog updated daily. For me, this is growing into an ideal Internet business model because I love blogging and talking about our industry, and now I am getting paid to do it. Not only this, but because I am discussing domains and domain development on my blog, my wife and friends don’t have to listen to me discuss it when I go out with them at night… it’s a win/win for all – good work/life balance!
The point of this is that no matter what you are passionate about, there are others who are just as passionate as you. Start a blog and make it your outlet to talk about your passion. Make smart business and marketing decisions along the way, but don’t let those drive your overall blogging decisions. People will be able to tell that you are passionate and knowledgeable about the subject, and if you are lucky like me, you will have a great readership that contributes to your blog. Even when my thinking is flawed, I am lucky to have enough readers who offer their opinions, making all of us smarter as a result.
It’s a win/win when you love what you do, continue to learn about the industry, grow your business, and generate revenue as you do it all.
A well known hardware store in the northeastern US shows how important a generic domain name can be to a company’s web presence. On the way back from a trip to 
My short Bahamas vacation was great, although I would have preferred to go in-season. Alas, with my wife in graduate school, our vacation weeks are fairly limited, so I will take any vacation time I can get! It’s good to be back to work though.
One of the pieces of fallout of the US economic situation was the merger of Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney, two of the largest investment and financial management firms in the world. The new company dubbed Morgan Stanley Smith Barney began notifying customers of the name change earlier this month via USPS, and the letters were written on Morgan Stanley Smith Barney letterhead, although there is no url cited in the top or bottom of the letter.
The real money with web development (when you aren’t selling a product or service) is in direct relationship deals with advertisers. Instead of having to hope for clicks with Adsense or a parked page, you can work with someone to build a website, add space for 5-6 advertisers, charge a fair rate for top placement, and blow your PPC earnings away.