So what does it take to earn $50 million a year in ad revenue?

The NY Times has a pretty good description of what it takes to earn $50 million a year in ad revenue off a startup ad-supported web site. Some of the background for the article comes from Jeremy Liew, from Lightspeed VC.  My first thought is that most startups need to work towards many other things before they think about $50m. Let's work towards a good customer base, loyal users, virality, and others.

Tim O’Reilly, the chief executive of O’Reilly Media, says, “This may be why more entrepreneurs are going for low-investment sites that don’t need an exit but provide ‘lifestyle businesses’ for their owners.”

I think over the next 5-10 years, we will see hundreds, if not thousands, of new Internet businesses that are able to let the owners live comfortably with a very small team (if any) and afford the things in life they want. Not everyone is looking to build the $1.5b takeover sites.

Mr. Mitchell says, "But to make $50 million with a big staff-produced content-rich guitar site, sponsored by, say, Fender and Gibson, a site would have to generate more than 200 million page views a month, Mr. Liew estimated. "