Note I said "smarter" -- not necessarily "more intelligent" or embodied with more knowledge or experience (although this also is more than likely) -- but "smarter."

I am, therefore going to offer each and every one reading this, the opportunity to prove just how smart you are by inviting suggestions as to how the online publishing industry can turn itself around and make money.

Readers Say (updated hourly) making money from online publishing... - Spiro website stuff... - Bede Profit from Content... - Daniel Subscriptions for Aardvark... - Grizzz Online publishing profits... - Charlie Internet news for profit... - Brian Make Money @ Aardvark... - Rob Making money... - Grant revenue... - Matt Have Your Say

Let's use this site as a typical example of an online content-based site which attracts an audience of around 2,500-3,500 visitors per day.

Let's look at the costs involved in publishing this site.

• My time -- at about 20 hours a month, that comes to $2,000 (hey -- I'm expensive but I'm good ;-)

• Hosting -- given that 100K page-views a month creates a fair amount of traffic volume we'll allocate NZ$50/month for this.

• Net access -- a total of about 20 hours a month spent online scanning the newswires for headlines and links. That's got to be worth NZ$20 (remembering that guaranteed levels of service are important here).

• Domain name -- that's about $50 a year or $4 a month.

• Misc. -- power, rent, depreciation on computers, modems, etc., probably comes to about $35 a month.

So, we can assume that it COSTS around $2,120 a month, or $25,440 a year to publish Aardvark.

Subscriptions? If we assume a core readership of 2,000 people then recovering that cost by way of subscription would require the subs to be set at around $13 a year.

Problem: it has been repeatedly proven that the subscription based provision of online content doesn't work and has a very low up-take. The reality is that if a site like Aardvark wanted to recover its costs by this method then they'd probably only get 10%-15% of readers signing up -- and that would necessitate an annual subscription rate of up to $130 which further increases the difficulty of getting people to pay.

The silly thing is that many people already pay twice this amount for "industry newsletters" which are distributed in print form but those same people would likely balk at paying for a web-based publication.

Advertising? What about that good old, tried-and-failed -- "advertising!"

Problem: Now, let's see -- 100,000 page views per month to generate $2,120 -- that would require charging $21 per thousand ad-views -- a pretty hefty rate these days even for a publication reaching a very well targeted audience. Unfortunately I doubt there's that much paying advertising at that rate available.

The honest fact is that with a core audience of 2,0000 regular readers plus 500-1,500 casuals or semi-regulars, advertisers will be paying less than a buck a head to reach them -- which actually isn't too bad -- but any ads they place will likely reach all the regulars within a day or so -- so why would they pay for any longer campaigns?

Now, I think I know how a publication such as Aardvark can make money and it has nothing to do with advertising or subscription -- but you tell me (and optionally Aardvark's other readers) how you think small content-based sites should go about it.

As always, your feedback is welcomed.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!