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Daily Kos: Nine Staff and a Seven-Figure Budget

March 16th, 2009

The next time your boss wonders why your company or organization’s blog hasn’t blown to the top of the popularity charts, consider this: running a top-level political blog is a serious logistical undertaking. People often point to Daily Kos as a model for a successful blog, since it’s one of the top destinations in the progressive political web and features an impressive legion of regular contributors. But supporting millions of readers and thousands of pieces of monthly content comes neither cheaply nor easily: in an SXSW Panel on social media marketing yesterday, site founder Markos Moulitsas mentioned that Daily Kos has nine full-time staff, assisted by contractors as needed.

Some employees are writers/editorial staff, others tech and others on the business side, and their care and feeding (along with the site’s) requires a seven-figure budget. Where does the money come from? Almost entirely from ads, which in turn depend on a huge number of page-views and a healthy group of advertisers willing to pay to reach those readers. Many political communicators have come to realize that starting a blog is not a casual act; Daily Kos shows just how big an endeavor one can become.

– cpd

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5 Comments Add your own

1. Rebuilding the Movement: &hellip | April 6th, 2009 at 11:39 am

[...] the DailyKos has nine employees and a seven figure budget. Here at RedState, I have a volunteer list of two dozen contributors with full time jobs, me, and [...]
2. 509 Bandwidth Limit Excee&hellip | April 6th, 2009 at 11:39 am

[...] the DailyKos has nine employees and a seven figure budget. Here at RedState, I have a volunteer list of two dozen contributors with full time jobs, me, and [...]
3. Moe Lane » Yeah. We&hellip | April 8th, 2009 at 10:20 pm

[...] RedState, Right Wing News, Protein Wisdom, Sister Toldjah, and well, myself*; none of us have a seven-figure yearly budget. Heck, some of us don’t have a budget at [...]
4. Christopher Taylor | April 11th, 2009 at 11:03 am

Actually that’s mistaken. Its cheap and easy to put content up, it isn’t expensive to have good writing and interesting material. It’s expensive to make sure you get noticed and heeded. Kos’ expenses have almost nothing to do with content or the blog its self. They have to do with networking, parties, reaching out, lobbying, and making sure they’re noticed and read and heeded by the right people in the right places. The PR is the expense.
5. EckerNet.Com » Blog&hellip | April 20th, 2009 at 2:24 am

[...] home of the online “grassroots” liberal side of the blogosphere has nine paid staff??? This must be an alternative definition of the word “grassroots” I wasn’t [...]

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