Can blogging still generate revenue with a content-saturated world wide web? We spoke to Carl Heaton of Web Courses Bangkok, who provides web training to novices and experts alike. Several of his students have gone on to create their own websites and blogs, many of which generate money. Heaton claims that demand is greater than ever for real, quality content. “No longer is it just enough to have your keywords wrapped around fluff with some pretty pictures. You need compelling, relvant and engaging content,” he says. This means that the internet needs you to write regularly about what you’re passionate about, whether its restaurants, digital photography, caring for a Persian cat, putting together fixie bicycles from scratch or media criticism.

Making money with blogging almost always takes time. The payout is slow and extremely small as most monetizing schemes depend on heavy traffic to your content, which is built over a long period of time and with a commitment to quality, regularity and a few traffic-generating tricks. Still, if you already have a day job and would like to work on online projects that you care about, there are a lot of opportunities out there, like writing your own web courses and, of course, blogging.

HOW TO: Run a Blog

Blogging with the intent to make money is a long-term scheme, involving a comprehensive plan to generate a large and regular readership that will read your sponsor ads or click the Google ads running on your sidebars. A passion for your subject aside, you need to consider some ways in which blogging is different from print writing.
1.) CONSISTENCY
“The essence of good blogging is consistency, interesting content and bit-sized chunks. Consistency gives you credibility but also when people pick up on your rhythm of posting you will get regular readers more inclined to purchase that recommended product or click one of your ads. Interesting content comes from being passionate about what you are writing about and seeing what works. When you have your blog keep a close eye on what types of post work best, then just repeat and refine,” says Heaton.
2.) WRITE FOR THE WEB
“An essential skill is writing for the web. It is very different from writing for print. You need to chop all your writing into quick paragraphs that ask a question to lead people in, give quality information and then round things up by telling the reader exactly what to do. A great site to learn about this is copyblogger.com.”
3.) REVIEW
“When you have a readership you can start interjecting reviews about products that have an affiliate link attached to it. For example if you like writing about cooking why not recommend a book from Amazon.com on ‘healthy Thai cooking’ or ‘cooking on a student budget’.”
4.) USE ADSENSE
“You can also add Adsense to your blog. Register for Google Adsense, create the advertising blocks and then copy the code into your blog. Hey presto, you have advertising which makes money with each click.”

HOW TO: Sell Web Courses

Using websites like www.learnable.com and www.udemy.com, you can create a course about a subject of your choice and people can sign up to take it, for a small fee. A quick look at either of these sites reveals courses in Adobe Design, macroeconomics, wine-tasting, memoir writing and more. Prices range from free to about US$250 (B7,500 for an Introduction to Building iPhone Apps for Beginners), but remember, if your course is pricey but not dazzling, you’ll probably get some unhappy students and bad reviews. Most sites will retain a commission on your sales; Udemy keeps 30%.
1.) KNOW YOUR STUFF
“You have to have experience in the field. You need to know the ins and outs of what you are talking about, the quirks and the things to look out for. Experience counts a lot more than a degree. Provide information people can’t find elsewhere,” says Heaton.
2.) MAKE IT JAZZY
“You’ll have to explain things in natural, progressive steps to all types of learners. Some people are very visual learners, like me,“says Heaton. A picture will always tell me more than a worksheet—and a video is the best! Others want to work logically through instructions and respond to detailed explanations.”
3.) BE PASSIONATE
“Have passion for what you are teaching. I think this is one of the most important things. If you sound bored or unsure then your online course will not get the reviews it needs to bring in more customers. Also if you are writing about what you love, you’ll enjoy making the course much more.”

WORLD’S TOP BLOGS

1. The Huffington Post.
Once a three-person effort, it now has 9,000 expert writers and was bought by AOL for US$315 million. www.huffingtonpost.com

2.  Mashable!
This social media news website gets over 50 million page views a month and has over two million Twitter followers. www.mashable.com

3.  TechCrunch.
With news and analysis on everything tech, TechCrunch is ranked #2 on Technorati. www.techcrunch.com

4.  Gizmodo.
This site covers gadgets and, since humble beginnings in 2002, has gone global, available in nine languges. www.gizmodo.com

5.  Engadget.
The Managing Editor of this blog has broken the Guinness World Record for most blogs: 17,212 and counting. www.engadget.com

READ MORE:
Cash for Clicks: There’s money to be made online. But is it any more fun (or more lucrative) than going to the office?

The folks: Siam Winery’s Monson Valley line makes wines from grapes grown in Thailand. Their Colombard, Chenin Blanc and Shiraz have already gotten nods of approval and appear on many wine lists in the city. After this year’s harvest, however, winemaker Kathrin Puff has rolled out several new wines, including some made from grapes we haven’t seen much from this line before, like the Sangiovese.

The grape: A varietal native to Italy, the Sangiovese is the main component of many Tuscan wines, particularly in the famous Chianti region. Some of its characteristics include high acidity, a relatively light body and fruit flavors like cherries and plums. Depending where they are grown, they can take on additional notes of herbs and flowers.

The look: As this is a rose, the skins of the grapes aren’t left in contact with the juice for very long—just three hours in this case. The result is a surprisingly rich, red-pink color.

The smell: Nice! Sour cherries and some unexpected hints of cigars and herbs.

The sip: As expected, it’s got a lot of fresh acidity and a hint of tannin—and a bit more body that we’d have predicted.

The food: Something light and cold. Bruschetta perhaps or a pasta dish.

The damage: B650 at the Siam Winery Office shop (174/1-4 Viphavadee-Rangsit Soi 78, 02-533-5600)

Epicurious

Price: Free
The most popular cooking app (and perhaps most popular cooking website) out there, Epicurious was included in Time’s Best iPhone Apps 2011 list. It’s free and straightforward: a search feature lets you choose from their database of 30,000 recipes, organized helpfully by skill level or under categories like “Healthy Lunches” and “Dinner Party Ideas.” The grocery shopping list for each recipe can also be easily accessed while you’re at the supermarket. Other than that, there isn’t much, except the ability to mark favorite recipes, but you don’t really need much else if you’re already a reasonably competent home cook.

Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals

Price: US$7.99 (B240)
We’ll admit it: some people hate him, but BK has a declared Jamie Oliver bias. That aside, his app has been lauded across respectable lists on the web, plus it includes adorable videos of the man making food and imparting knife skills and other techniques. The app only comes with 60 recipes, which isn’t many compared to, say, Epicurious, but on the bright side, the app is already preloaded with them, so you won’t be waiting around trying to catch a signal. Other features that make it worthwhile are the portion adjustments, which expands the recipe depending on how many people are eating, the shopping list feature and even a randomizer, which gives you a random recipe when you shake your phone.

Cook Mate

Price: Free
Ever had a few random things left in your fridge at the end of the week and not known how to combine them to make a delicious dinner? As this is Bangkok and you are Bangkokians, probably not. But let’s say you’re stuck at home and have to cook something from your fridge, well, you tell Cook Mate what you have on hand, and Cook Mate comes up with a recipe for you that includes those ingredients. It even organizes search results into “your pantry is ready for this” and “you have to go buy some food.”

Mixologist: Drink Recipes

Price: Free
A boozy version of Cook Mate, Mixologist lets you enter all the types of booze and mixers you have left in your liquor cabinet and then searches a database of about 8,000 drinks to give you cocktails you can make without stumbling out of the house. A GPS locator gives you liquor stores in the area, but that’s only if you live in the US. The rest can still enjoy other features, like the Random Drink, which gives you cocktail recipes based on your entered choice of liquor, glassware, cocktail-type and more. A paid version of this app forgoes all the banner ads.

Kitchen Pad Timer

Price: US$1.99 (B60)
Pretty simple: this app lets you time up to four things cooking on your stove or in your oven at the same time, assigning different alarm tones to each so you can cook up a simultaneous storm. Too simple to warrant the two dollars? Well, we’re impressed by the cute graphic of an actual stove, which also lets you enter the heat level on each burner. If you have one of those depressing hot plates so common in new condos, it might take you a few tries to figure out the heat levels, but other than that, this is great.

Ask the Butcher

Price: US$1.99 (B60)
Chances are you know little about cuts of meat beyond pork chop and chicken breast. The Ask the Butcher app has several approaches to meat cuts: diagrams of lamb, beef, veal and pork for the browsing foodie, lists of various cuts for those of you scratching your heads over recipes you’d like to cook and recipes for various cuts. What’s also really neat is the timer the app provides. Enter the cut of meat and how well-done you want it, and it will give you a countdown. It also has a feature where you can look up local butchers, but that’s pretty useless in Bangkok. Still, this is a great app for a committed beginner.

Wine Enthusiast Guide

Price: US$4.99 (B150)
A bit pricier than your usual apps, the Wine Enthusiast Guide is so expensive because it has details, prices and reviews of over 100,000 wines. If you know what you’re drinking, just look it up, and if you need suggestions, use the Search feature to enter your taste and price preferences and let the app pull up some options for you. For the advanced user, the Vintage chart gives you a generalized year-by-year overview of 125 wine regions and styles so you know when to drink your bottle, or whether the vintage a restaurant is selling is any good.

Wine Notes

Price: Free
For the more advanced and enthusiastic wine drinker, Wine Notes is really a smartphone version of one of those Moleskine type diaries where you record the details of every wine you drink. The interface allows you to easily enter a picture of the label and details like varietal, vintage and region, along with more involved notes on flavors and aromas. Once you have a collection of wine notes, you can search for them easily with the search function as well as share individual impressions on Facebook and Twitter.

What About My Android?

Epicurious, Jamie Oliver’s 20-MInute Meals, Mixologist and Wine Notes are also available on Android Marketplace.

How did you become a DJ?
I used to be a glamor broadcast journalist when I was 15. I used to report on celebrity events, and frequently came across India’s pioneer DJs. Soon after this, my focus shifted from journalism to music and I took to DJ-ing.

We don’t see a lot of women DJs, particularly from India. Did you have a hard time getting people to take you seriously?
Well yes, at times people do underestimate my potential, my caliber, my talent and they do doubt the quality of my music. But it doesn’t matter to me, because every time I get to the DJ console, I nail it and change their preconceived notions about me.

Do you also balance school or other jobs with being a DJ?
Yes, I graduated last October from Mumbai University. It was fun to study on flights, land, and jet off to the examination hall from the airport. I remember doing this for all six exams I had to take—studying at the airport, on flights to Goa, Hyderabad, Mauritius, Spain, and at times I only had about 30 minutes to leave the examination hall and catch a flight for an upcoming gig. I don’t think much about my future. I’m always living in the present. I do my bit and leave the rest to my destiny.

What’s the clubbing scene like in Mumbai? What’s hot? What’s not?
Mumbai is very versatile in its taste for music. From high power trance to easygoing R&B to ambient lounge to thumping EDM to full power Bollywood to old school retro and Jazz, Mumbai has something to offer every soul. International biggies, pioneer DJs, legendary artists, swanky club decor, great sound and acoustics are hot. Shady clubs, cheesy sounds, and old school bar menus are not.

A young woman hitting the clubs for work sounds like a nightmare scenario for Asian parents.
It is. Initially, even trying to pursue spinning as a hobby was a big no-no. One fine day I stopped going to high school. I told them, “If no DJ-ing, then no studying.” That was the turning point in my life. Soon after they agreed to my terms and set their condition, which was, “If no graduation, then no DJ-ing!” When I began DJ-ing, my dad would drop me at a club, sit and watch my sets at times or at times he would just drop me off and come back to pick me up once I was done. Even now he always drops me off at the airport, no matter what the time is. My success would have been next to impossible without my parents’ help and support.

If you weren’t a DJ, what would you be?
If not a DJ, then I would have continued being a glamor broadcast journalist, reporting on celebrity events—or a painter, a crafter, a fashion designer, an interior decorator, or possibly even a wedding planner. Anything which involves creativity, where I can continue being my own boss.

Plugged

• Android 2.3 Gingerbread means it’s fast, lets you do a few things at once and, of course, gives you access to 200,000 apps.
• 5.1 megapixel camera with flashlight for recording video.
• 4-inch screen and very responsive touchscreen keypad.
• Legit Playstation controller, including shoulder buttons and analog joystick.
• The Snapdragon graphics processor’s high-quality visuals, the stereo sound and added vibrations lend a thrill to racing and shooting games.
• Compatible with a handful of original Playstation games like Snowboarders 2 and MediEvil (Around B200 per game).
• Facebook addicts will like the fact that a one-time sign-in will let you share photos, music, likes and game scores between your phone and your FB profile.
• Front-facing VGA cam makes you video chat-ready.

Bugged

• Some might be a bit overwhelmed by just how many things this gadget does (phone, web stuff, multi-player gaming) to fully enjoy its capabilities.
• Some of the tiny buttons and icons on the touchscreen are difficult to select, especially if you have big fingers.
• The front-facing VGA cam is pretty disappointing compared to the one at the back.
• Some games take input from both the Playstation controller and the touchscreen, which can be confusing and annoying.

Verdict:

This is a geek’s phone, packed with tons of features, all of which work generally well. All the good games are in the B200 range though, so that might be a bit of a shock compared to 99 cent iPhone apps. If you’re a serious gamer, it’s worth switching over from Apple, but occasional gamers (yes, even Angry Bird addicts) will just find the phone a little bit clunky.
B17,990. www.sonyericsson.com/xperia