Michael R. Hall | mrhall.com | 2010

Paul Yanover's departure from Disney Online offers another digital media revenue data point. Disney Online is a universally popular collection of sites with 36 million unique users per month and $60 million in revenue per year, according to PaidContent.org. The revenue per month per visitor to Disney.com and its related sites is about $0.14. For perspective, these sites are also intended for marketing the Disney brand, and they skew much younger than the average digital media site.

Digital media is a viable business when content is produced efficiently and accountably. The technology used to support content production is important, yet always secondary to the content itself. The marketing value of a site must be considered if marketing's the goal, and Disney has likely assigned that value to Disney.com to make the revenue model work.

I've never considered myself a journalist. Fortunately, Twitter provides a mirror. I'm listed in a few lists of Twitter labeled "journalism," "journos," and "sportswriters."

In college, I thought about a career as a journalist. I looked up internships at the Boston Globe and the WSJ, I worked at the college paper. In my current job, I enable online journalists by giving them the online tools to share their words. But I don't write, at least not professionally. And I don't put my name on the line for a research projects, like journalists do every day.

Journalists deserve admiration and credit. They spend their lives doing the research and analysis that informs, educates, and inspires all of their readers. The most I can mimic is Gail Wynand.