Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger has long been one of my favorites, and that’s because of the supportive and friendly spirit of its content and community, as well as Darren’s overall take on blogging as a professional business. A few recent ProBlogger articles have particularly drawn my attention. 

How to Make $30,000 a year Blogging is a good illustration of the it’s hard/takes time/quality content/quality promotion dynamic. It also delivers a fabulous primer on different kinds of online advertising strategies, such as CPC, CPM, commission, and sponsorships. And Rowse points out that using multiple advertising networks and types is a good way to maximize revenue. Of course, you need to drive a lot of traffic before you can expect to make anything close to $30k per year! 

And here’s helpful news for money-seeking blogs who use the popular Blogger platform: Google and Amazon Partner Up to Integrate Amazon Associates Program into Blogger Blogs. One of the more interesting things about this news is that Google-owned Blogger is now openly promoting a non-Google advertising product. And since many bloggers use both Google Adsense and the Amazon Affiliate program as a bedrock of their money-making strategy, the move makes a lot of sense. 

There are also a number of “indirect” ways to make money from blogging, including professional networking opportunities, promotion for consulting and online services, direct product sales, and more. Some of the most prolific and ambitious bloggers are writing books (both e-books as well as the dead wood variety) and promoting them to their readers. The latter – old fashioned books distributed via old school real world distribution – gets the spotlight on Mashable: From Blog to Book Deal: How 6 Authors Did It. Profiles include how Ben Huh of the I Can Has Cheezburger empire, Pamela Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation, and Walker Lamond of Rules of My Unborn Son converted Internet celebrity into book deals.

Even though the blogging game is highly competitive, it’s also fun and challenging and changing all the time. Bloggers are forging new business models out of online publishing, with the result that the best of the best online writers and self-promoters are able to live la vida blogger full time.

For a lot more information about professional blogging in 2009, check out Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere report.

(this post originally appeared on Technorati)

NewTeeVee nails one of the key benefits, even if it's not one that Amazon will not be out front in promoting:

After all, this sounds like a great way to buy a holiday present for someone that you can enjoy yourself as well without having to explain the missing shrink-wrap plastic.

On a bigger picture level, products like the iPod and Kindle and On Demand are fundamentally changing the dynamic of content ownership, from physical commodity to access to electronic data.

And all of that means you can give the original Terminator to your cousin over the holidays and then access it on demand (albeit in standard def) for free. Bonus.

Now let the blogosphere pontificate:

* PC World: Amazon has unveiled a "limited time only" promotion called Disc+ On Demand that has the potential to change the way we consume media. Now when you purchase select DVD or Blu-ray discs, you can download a digital copy of your film for instant viewing via your Mac, PC, Roku, TiVo, and more. This promotion is the perfect way to get a little more out of the Christmas gifts you buy for others; you can watch the movies first.

* Mashable: The downsides: Disc+ on Demand is only available on a very limited number of titles right now, and Amazon is promoting it as a “limited time offer” — we fully expect that demand will be high, and that the service could (and should) become a permanent one.

* MediaMemo: Amazon (AMZN) gets a two-for-one out of this as well: The promotion will (the company hopes) goose disc sales, which are sputtering, while introducing shoppers to the company’s Web streaming offering, which most people don’t yet know about or use.

* Technologizer: Amazon is pitching the offer as a bonus for disc buyers that gives them immediate access to the movie they just purchased. But in some cases the DVD or Blu-Ray costs the same as purchasing the stand-alone streaming version–the Terminator is $9.99 on Blu-Ray or as an on-demand purchase. So you can also think of Disc+ on Demand as providing a nice, permanent copy of the movie you bought in on-demand form.

* TeleRead: You can buy online access to some Amazon titles when you buy the paper editions, last I knew, but not the actual e-files for the Kindle. For the future, let’s hope that could also include ePub files for other machines.

(this post originally appeared on Technorati)

Amazon Kindle
I’m a huge fan of the Kindle. It brings a bookstore to your fingertips, allowing you to browse and download free samples of hundreds of thousands of books. And you can subscribe to blogs and magazines, browse the web (in a clunky fashion, but still pretty cool), and add notes and bookmark all of your stuff. Most of all, it’s an extraordinary device that lets you access a galactical amount of information and entertainment. And, what’s more, the applications are endless.

Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is about way more than gaming, though you can of course certainly gorge yourself on any and all manner of gaming goodness (I’m just getting into Left 4 Dead 2 myself so that I might blast a few hundred dozen drooling flesh-eating zombie when I’m of a mood).

What’s more, the Xbox is making huge strides in becoming a central nexus of the webby home.

BlackBerry Curve
Yes, yes, I understand and am all for the glory and wonder and apps ahoy of the iPhone. But if you’re a web cultist, in my book nothing beats the BlackBerry Curve for e-mail and web browsing and texting with a fury.

Amazon Video On Demand
There’s something delightful about watching a movie on your computer or laptop screen, and I’m sure I’m not the only online media cultist who enjoys having Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince or Terminator Salvation or Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian playing on one corner of the screen while a hundred browser tabs are open in another.

A great pair of headphones
If you’re web working, you need to block out those distractions. Music is often a must, and the right headphones let you block out the screeching traffic and yelping dogs and mental sonic alien manifestations from pan dimensional climes (is that just me?).

My recommendation: the Sennheiser RS120 926 MHz Wireless RF Headphones with Charging Cradle.

Sirius XM Satellite Subscription
This’ll take care of the music and audio entertainment part.

Site Meter: premium subscription
Nothing beats Google Analytics for insane depth and detail of website and blog analytics, but nothing beats the joy of good old Site Meter for your webby stats junkies. The premium subscription allows you to track recent visitors, inbound site searches, and more to a much greater extent than the free version.

Netflix
Netflix is a great service that keeps getting better. The streaming service allows you to watch a fairly large selection (though it would be nice if it would grow over time) of movies and TV shows online and via Xbox and other devices.

Mountain Dew: And lots of it
There’s a reason why tech and web geeks love Mountain Dew: the stuff seriously kicks a huge quantity of adrenalized and over-caffeinated ass. Just the stuff to get you through a late night online gaming, blogging, or production build sesh.

Wordpress: An expert to help us figure it out
I just went through a painful site redesign. It began with a seemingly simple operation to get tagging to work again, as the feature had been broken for far too long.

Let me say this: it would not be a bad idea to start a paid service where a wordpress expert is on 24-hour call, available via IM or Skype, or something.

Okay, here’s a bonus Number 11…

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City
A great edition to an all time classic game. Rock on, Rockstar Games.

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Instead of having to dig up a customer service number, Amazon.com has a big shiny Call Me link that allows you to set a time (”Right Now” or a specific set time) that a customer service rep will call you. Pretty cool.

Shelfari has long been a standout in terms of its visual display. Giving the illusion of browsing actual book shelves and the ability to enjoy beautiful and interesting and unique book covers is a way to truly extend the experience of being a real world bookstore (without the annoyance and expense, I’d argue!). Borders.com switched to a similar interface as well, and its easy to see why. On top of cool visual browsing, Shelfari also offers a host of social features.

Well, it seems that Amazon acquiring Shelfari. I’m not sure what this will mean for the health of the online books business, but I am selfishly hoping that Amazon will eventually roll out a version of its Kindle product with a dazzling colorful visual browsing interface.

While there was a good bit of early skepticism about Amazon’s nifty electronic book reader, projections are now being arced high and skyward. As in more than $1 billion in sales and 4% of the company’s revenue by 2010. “Amazon’s iPod” is now being tossed around, with early sales figures to back it up.

Like the iPod and iTunes combo, the Kindle is easy to use, easy to manage, easy/addictive in making purchases, and actually encourages more of an activity you already enjoy (listening to music / reading books and other stuff on the go). In fact, I’m about halfway through the first history book that I’ve managed to dig into in some number of years. It’s about the battle for Moscow during World War II – on my mind in part of course because of the terrible situation in Georgia.