During PodCampPittsburgh, one of the biggest topics of discussion was monetizing: making money from your podcast (or blog). Many sites offer recommendations, usually focused around understanding your viewership/readership. A recent post by Grace Bonney of BizBox Blog on Slate (“How Does One Live Off of a Blog?“) brings together great ideas and a healthy dose of reality:

There are few design bloggers I know who live entirely off of their blogs. Most people have the support of a significant other’s income, freelance revenue or a side job that helps pay the bills. And I’m certainly no different. When it comes to paying my rent and putting food on the table I combine my site’s ad revenue with income from freelance jobs. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but for the most part we all work outside of our blogs in some capacity to make ends meet.

The whole article is worth reading, but I’ll quickly summarize Grace’s key steps to turning your blog or podcast into a revenue source:

1. Establish your blog or website’s basic stats.

2. Create a reader survey. (This is so you can write a more accurate audience profile.)

3. Create an advertising one-sheet (using the visitor stats and profile).

4. Set your prices.

5. Reach out to potential advertisers.

6. Maintain your boundaries and keep your advertisers happy.

These are just the highlights — make sure to check out the details and fine points.

As a final point, she considers the question of whether to use an aggregating ad service like Google Adwords or to find and manage targeted advertisers on your own. Grace suggests that dealing directly with advertisers has worked best for her, and I’d echo that opinion — the bloggers I know who’ve done best with advertising don’t rely on Adwords.

Another ad option to consider is signing up for an affiliate program, such as Commission Junction. If you have a truly targeted audience, and if there’s a fluid way to include specific product or brand ads on your pages or in the content, this is an excellent option. It’s worked well for me in a variety of settings.

How much you get out of your website depends on how much you put in. Create a plan, set some goals, and give it a try. Make sure to evaluate the results. then rinse and repeat.

(Thanks to Rob Walker/Murketing for highlighting the BizBox article.)

CNNMoney.com is conducting a staff blogging experiment. Sixteen staff writers are each maintaining blogs on specific topics, with the bulk of them aggregated at Business 2.0 Blogs.

It’s an interesting idea, and the site is readable. But they’ve missed some basic and important pieces that would make the site easier to use — especially for those new to blogs. For example:

• The site has no page title — the words that appear in the title of the browser window. It might seem like a small error, but the page title is also used when you bookmark a page, and if it’s missing then the page URL becomes the title of the bookmark. Clunky.
• Nowhere on the site is the site explained: What is Business 2.0, who writes these blogs, how do the editors choose which posts to feature, and so on. There is a link back to Business 2.0, but if you don’t know what that is — if you’ve come to the site via a link elsewhere on the web — then you’re likely to feel confused.
• And in fact, the logo for the blog site says it’s Business 2.0 Beta … so again, if you don’t already know about the relationship between this blog aggregator and the main Business 2.0 site, you might incorrectly assume that this is the magazine’s complete web presence. (The thumbnail images of recently Business 2.0 print magazine covers only reinforces this error.)

But the site does make it easy to jump to any of the staff blogs, and has a handy tool for subscribing via many of the popular feedreaders and via email. They got a few key things right.

And the logo for Business 2.0 Beta is animated, with the “beta” part falling down, gathering itself up, and getting back together. It’s a fun way to indicate that the site is a work in progress and will get better. Let’s hope they get better soon.
By the way, for a terrific list of tips for making your blog highly usable, check out “Blog conversion: Twelve highly detailed suggestions” and “Two more thoughts on Blog Conversion” by Robbin Steif over at the Lunametrics blog.

The newly-formed Tri-County IT and Communications Services Consortium, covering Armstrong, Butler & Indiana counties, is conducting a survey to understand the needs and expectations of companies in this area.

The consortium’s mission is “to support and strengthen information technology and communication services and industries in the Armstrong, Butler, and Indiana county regions.”

If you have a technology business that operates in any of these counties, take three minutes to complete this survey.

Tri-County IT and Communications Survey

I’ve been receiving strange emails the last few weeks, talking of a mystery and sending me to www.TheMuckleMan.com. The site is an online puzzle, with a grid of squares that link to various news reports across the web and the MySpace blog of Gilbert, a marine biologist researching giant squid in Newfoundland.

(Incidentally, Gilbert seems to have great taste in music. His first two blog entries point to the new Killers album and “Oh No” by OK Go.)

Yesterday’s post from Gilbert tells us that a terrible accident has happened, that a child has been lost at sea.

Of course this is a promotional campaign. The event is City Theatre’s upcoming production of “The Muckle Man,” opening in late January 2007.

January 25, February 18, 2007
The Muckle Man
By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

Strange things rise to the surface in this mysterious thriller

In the deep waters of isolated Conception Bay, Newfoundland, marine biologist Addison Clarke searches for the elusive giant squid, the ocean’s “red ghost,” intent on solving its mysteries. On dry land, Clarke’s wife, Marina, chases a mystery of her own when she rescues a stranger who emerges from the surf. As the natural world is thrown off balance, what surfaces is a mystical tale of the sea and its secrets. Currents of pop culture, contemporary science, and ancient folklore run through this chilling edge-of-your-seat thriller.

The emails and site remind me of the website for the original “Blair Witch Project,” although that campaign was more hidden about its origins — at first, the Blair Witch materials seemed as though they could be real. In this case, I’ve already received information about City Theatre’s current season and knew “The Muckle Man” would be opening in January. Plus, the site and related materials are quite polished.

I think the lack of mystery is fine: The campaign builds up a sense of anticipation for the play, and creates an air of creepiness that suits the play’s premise.

I like the puzzles the site poses — a new puzzle each week, requiring one to read (or skim) the articles and answer a simple question. Just enough involvement to create interest, not enough to annoy a busy person. I’m not sure what happens if you get all the questions right; I found and sent in the answer to week 3, but I’m sure I wasn’t the first to do so.

In all, it’s an engaging campaign to build interest in a new, never-before-seen play.

I had a grand, nostalgic time visiting old haunts in Boston and Cambridge last week, including riding the T, Boston’s subway (officially the MBTA). Fares are higher than when I was in college there — up from $0.60 to $1.25 — but it’s still the easiest and cheapest way to get around the metropolitan area.

More notable than the fare increase was a new style of payment: To replace tellers selling fare tokens, the MBTA is installing automated payment machines that take credit and debit cards and give back tickets — like those used in New York City and other places. The new system is collectively called Charlie, and is represented by a dashing cartoon fellow wearing a hat and smiling.

Here’s what’s funny about this: Charlie wasn’t invented for this automated ticketing system. He has existed for a long time, as the main character in a song about Boston’s subways, written in the 1940s using the melody of an even older song. Jonathan Reed at MIT provides lyrics for the song, as recorded by the Kingston Trio:

Charlie On the MTA

Let me tell you the story
Of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA

Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
“One more nickel.”
Charlie could not get off that train.

Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn’d
He may ride forever
‘neath the streets of Boston
He’s the man who never returned.

Now all night long
Charlie rides through the tunnels
Saying, “What will become of me?
How can I afford to see
My sister in Chelsea
Or my cousin in Roxbury?”

Charlie’s wife goes down
To the Scollay Square station
Every day at quarter past two
And through the open window
She hands Charlie a sandwich
As the train comes rumblin’ through.

As his train rolled on
underneath Greater Boston
Charlie looked around and sighed:
“Well, I’m sore and disgusted
And I’m absolutely busted;
I guess this is my last long ride.”

In other words, the symbol of the T’s new automated ticketing is a guy who’s stuck riding the subway for the rest of his life. Charlie would seem to be the worst choice for a branding icon.

As Wikipedia explains, Charlie “can’t get off because he didn’t bring enough money for the ‘exit fares’ which had been established to collect an increased fare without upgrading existing fare collection equipment.”

When I heard this song years ago, living in Boston, it didn’t bother me much that Charlie was trapped on the subway for want of a nickel. What bugged me was that his wife brought him sandwiches daily, yet never thought to stick his exit fare in his hand as the train went by.

As for the automated tellers: They’re easy to use, and I found the tickets more convenient than subway tokens. So maybe that’s the real reason Charlie is smiling.