Online profits scarce
By Asha

Even as the internet is a treasure trove of news, entertainment, facts and research, it has disrupted all business models for media houses.  Old established print media like New York Times and Guardian have substantial readership but still do not turn a profit.  Web only news organizations are not making that much money either.

Business Insider is one of America’s most popular online sites with a readership of 8 million.  Unlike other media sites, Business Insider, which employs 45 full time staff, has publicly revealed that their profits on revenue of more than $5 Million were not even enough to buy a high end personal computer

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We only did only $5 million of revenue last year ($4.8 million, to be precise, of which most came from advertising). And, yes, $5 million of revenue is pretty puny in general. It's less than a single big network news anchor gets paid in a single year, for example.

But $5 million of revenue is a lot more revenue than we did three years ago ($39,495). And we're a few years younger than those other digital guys mentioned above. And we're on a similar trajectory.

And did I mention that we were also profitable last year?

Yes!

Not WILDLY profitable, mind you. In fact, the sum total of our year's worth of effort would barely--just barely--buy us a MacBook Pro: We made $2,127 in 2010.

(That's $2,127. Not $2,127,000. Or $2,127,000,000. Sadly.)
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In the future, media will only make money via online businesses.  And even then, profits would be smaller than in the past. But the winners are the public who get to read great articles for free.