[jacques_chester]

When I wrote my honours project (which was the first version of the tech I developed) I mentioned merchandising; it's pretty hit-driven though.

I personally make money on affiliate links to Amazon. By which I mean "I get a minute subsidy on my book habit".

Some of the bloggers make a few dollars on advertising, but the amount has steadily fallen because they aren't sufficiently narrowly focused to be worth finding a niche advertiser. And they aren't sufficiently widely read that a more general A/B brand-awareness advertiser would pay much over open-market CPM.

[chewxy]

You seem to have found the problem by yourself. IMO this would be the trough of sorrow[0] for any startup with advertising as a monetization plan - the growth but no growth phase.

In my blog post I mentioned that here there are basically two paths to go - both of which you have identified. If you want to stick with advertising, choose one?

[0]http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/03/the-startup-curve.html

[jacques_chester]

I am choosing to invent a new model, actually :)

[chewxy]

pray share (microsubscription has been done before as you said). How would you do it?

[jacques_chester]

Email me.

Edit: "invent a new model" is hubristic code for "independently invent a new model that actually can be analogised to some pre-internet models".