Paid bloggers fit just about every definition of a microtrend: Their ranks have grown dramatically over the years, blogging is an important social and cultural movement that people care passionately about, and the number of people doing it for at least some income is approaching 1% of American adults.
收费博客作者几乎符合“微趋势”的所有定义：过去几年中，他们的人数迅猛增长；写博客已经成了一种重大的社会文化运动，人们对之热情高涨；而靠写博客赚钱的人占美国成年人口的比例已接近1%。

The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That's almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click -- whether on their site or someone else's. And that's nearly half a million of whom it can be said, as Bob Dylan did of Hurricane Carter: 'It's my work he'd say, I do it for pay.'
我们所能找到的最好的研究显示，美国博客作者总人数超过2,000万，其中170万人从中营利，而45.2万人以博客写作为主要收入来源。将近200万人通过设置关键词、发贴或是点击量得到报酬－－无论是他们自己网站的点击量还是去点击别人的网站。也就是说，像鲍勃•迪伦(Bob Dylan)在歌曲《卡特飓风》(Hurricane Carter)里唱的那样，将近50万人都可以说，这是我的工作，我干这个就是为了挣钱。

This could make us the most noisily opinionated nation on earth. The Information Age has spawned many new professions, but blogging could well be the one with the most profound effect on our culture. If journalists were the Fourth Estate, bloggers are becoming the Fifth Estate.
这种情况可能让我们成了全世界最吵闹、最固执己见的国家。信息时代催生了许多新职业，但博客写作很可能会是对我们的文化影响最深远的。如果说新闻记者是第四等级（新闻界的别称），那博客作者正成为第五等级。

What started as a discussion forum for progressive politics and new technologies has now been applied to motherhood, health care, the arts, fashion, dentistry -- and just about every other imaginable area of life. What started as a hobby and an outlet for volunteers is becoming big business for newly emerging sites, for companies that now depend upon their reviews and for the people who work in this new industry.
博客最开始只是一个讨论革新政见和新技术的论坛，现在内容已经广泛涉及育儿、医疗卫生、艺术、时尚、牙科……几乎囊括你能想到的所有生活领域。写博客最初只是一项自愿自发的业余爱好和宣泄渠道，现在却成了一个重大的商机，对于新兴网站、依赖博客作者观点的公司以及从事这个新兴行业的人而言莫不如此。

Demographically, bloggers are extremely well educated: three out of every four are college graduates. Most are white males reporting above-average incomes. One out of three young people reports blogging, but bloggers who do it for a living successfully are 2% of bloggers overall. It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 a year. Bloggers can get $75 to $200 for a good post, and some even serve as 'spokesbloggers' -- paid by advertisers to blog about products. As a job with zero commuting, blogging could be one of the most environmentally friendly jobs around -- but it can also be quite profitable. For sites at the top, the returns can be substantial. At some point the value of the Huffington Post will no doubt pass the value of the Washington Post.
从人口统计学的角度看，博客作者的受教育程度极高：四分之三的人为大学毕业。绝大多数为白人男性，收入高于平均水平。三分之一的年轻人说自己写博客，但成功地以此谋生的博客作者仅占2%。每月唯一访问者达到10万左右才能实现年收入7.5万美元。一篇好的博客文章报酬可能在75美元至200美元之间，有的博客作者还充当“代言博客”－－广告商付费让他们为产品撰写博客文章。由于这样的工作完全不需要上下班通勤，因此写博客没准是世上最环保的工作了－－同时也可能带来丰厚的收入。顶级博客站点的收益相当高。在某种程度上，博客网站Huffington Post 的价值无疑超过《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)。

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