US News & World Report cites Ashvegas, TypeAMom blogs

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Here’s the story, which includes me, as well as Asheville mom blogger extraordinaire Kelby Carr. A snippet:

Carr’s site represents another growing breed of media start-ups. Like sites that target a geographical community, these cover narrow areas of interest that the national or local media have difficulty addressing well. Carr says the specialized nature of her sites makes for a good pitch to advertisers. “When you look at niche blogs, companies will think, ‘Yes, there are only 5,000 impressions, but those 5,000 care,’ as opposed to newspapers where many people don’t care or even see the ad,” she says. She also tries to attract advertisers through the collaborative nature of her site. Most of Carr’s writers have their own blogs that they can use to further plug an advertiser’s product or service. Whether niche blogs will see the big ad dollars or not remains to be seen. “The site itself does not make a lot of money,” Carr admits. Her bigger source of income comes from leveraging the site to shore up her personal brand: She speaks at conferences and other events about motherhood issues, and the blog raises her visibility and credibility.