Interesting read about a well known community site that caught the wave of google ads and then saw it decline overnight..
MetaFilter, started in the late ’90s as one of the original group blogs, grew into a small but active community site. When AdSense came out in 2003, it suddenly started accruing revenue. By 2005, Matt was making double his salary and was able to quit his day job to focus on MetaFilter full-time.
In 2012, a reconfiguration in how Google ranked pages caused MetaFilter’s revenues to drop overnight. During the next few years, Matt struggled to keep MetaFilter afloat. Just over a year ago, Matt stepped back from his day-to-day role. Indie.vc caught up with him last week to check in on how things have been going.
