I recently had the opportunity to chat with Keith Kleiner about his experiences in the world of web journalism. Keith is the founder and editor of Singularity Hub and an associate founder of Singularity University. Thanks, Keith, for your time and insights!

Here is a print-up of the Q&A:

Q: So, what is Singularity Hub?

A: Well, primarily we’re a blog. But increasingly we’re more than that. We’re a network, we’re a network of news information. We use the blog as our primary outlet, but increasingly we find ourselves reaching out to people through Facebook, and Twitter, and other means. So I like to think of us more as a news source that has a distributed way of communicating with its followers whether they come to us on the blog, or through an RSS Feed, Facebook, Twitter. I mean, you can even read us on the Kindle.

Q: When did you guys begin?

A: Officially, it started in June 2008. But at that point it was just a side project. Then,at the start of 2009 I quit my day job and pursued it as a full-time endeavor.

Q: What drove you to do that? Why jump into web media?

A: Well, I think I got started in it for the right reasons. The best reason to get into something a lot of the time is because you’re passionate about it. It’s not because you’re thinking about the money or the fame or whatever, it’s just you’re excited about it. That’s what was going on in June 08, it was just a hobby, it was for fun, I got really excited about the many technological advances tat were happening everyday so I thought I’d just start blogging about them. Then by Jan 2009, I was just having so much fun with it, and I saw the potential that could make it economically sustaining, so I decided to give it ago.

Q: What sort of growth have you seen in year one?

A: Well, in December 2009 we saw our best month, about 250,000 page views, which is, not enormous, but that’s pretty darn good for your first year, and this year we’re looking to do much better.

Q: What sort of challenges have you faced thus far, and how have you met them?

A: Well, the biggest challenge overall is just turning it into a business. I’m spending a lot of time and money on it, and I want to get a return on that. Now, the biggest challenge everyday is just getting people to come to the site. I think we have great stories, of course, but in the beginning I was writing these awesome stories for an audience of 2, you know, nobody. But now, the audience is getting bigger which is great. It’s always a challenge to get more and more people to the site, because ultimately that’s what’s going to bring revenue up.

Q: Are Facebook and Twitter primary tools for building that traffic?

A: Primary? That’s hard to say. They’re definitely enormous assets. Most people don’t realize that, even people who are in the business. You know, there are a lot of blogs that have been around a long time, like 5 or 6 years, much older than us, but they haven’t realized that things like Facebook and Twitter can be useful. They haven’t really adapted to the times, so they’re missing out on a great opportunity.

Q: I’ve noticed SH has more audio and video clips up on the site. Have you found those multimedia aspects increase traffic to the site?

A: Well, for each story we’re trying to tell, we’re trying to do it in the most engaging way possible that makes people enjoy having read that story and also makes them want to share that story with other people. All of the things you mentioned—videos and that stuff—that’s like putting icing on the story. You know, the story is there, and then you can put on the icing and sprinkles, the videos, the images. But the real asset is the writing of the story, the text. Text is still king.

Q: There’s a lot of hype that print media is close to being completely blown up as a result of web journalism. Do you see this sort of blog-form writing being the new wave?

A: Well, I mean, there’s no debate about it. It clearly is the new wave already. The question is, will blogs still be the new wave, or will something supplant that? There’s no doubt that blogs have already destroyed the old model, and they now represent the current model. How long it will be before something else replaces the blog, I don’t know. But see, the blogs have enormous advantages over old media, and a lot of people don’t understand why they’re successful. One reason is that traditional media publishes once per period, whether that be once per month, per week, or per day. But news does not develop once per X period of time. It develops continuously. Blogs are able report up to the minute, or update a story that’s already been published, or quickly publish a follow up story. There’s also the concept of live blogging, where maybe you’re at a conference, and instead of sitting at the conference all day, taking notes, then writing the story afterwards and publishing the following day, which is the old model, you can now, with the new model, sit there at the event, have your laptop and make multiple blog posts in real time. So, there’s really just no comparison between that and the old model.

Q: Turning towards the content of your site. You guys write a lot about very science-y topics, which can be a subject that turns some people off. Have you found this to be an issue, and if so, how do you get around it?

A: Well, first of all, there’s a huge market for science, there’s no doubt about that. I mean, sure, we’re not going to be able to compete with TMZ, you know, science isn’t going to be as sensational as Tiger Woods getting divorced (laughs). But that doesn’t mean there’s not still an enormous market for us. If you look at traditional media, Scientific American, Popular Science, they’ve had tremendous success building a business strictly around science, so my company is just trying to apply that model to the modern era of blogging. There’s no doubt there’s a market for people who are interested in science and technology, and in fact, technology at least—science is a little diff—but technology has sort of been the poster child for blogging, one of the real success stories.

Q: So how about your personal involvement on the site. Can you take me through a day in the life?

A: Sure! Let me start by saying the business I run has many, many aspects to it, and it’s really hard for one person to take care of all of those aspects. Let’s go over the components: First is just writing the stories. Then there’s is finding story ledes to write about. Next, you need to get information about the story you need, be it scheduling interviews, or acquiring video, or acquiring images, and so on. And then there’s distribution. You write a story, but you don’t want it to fall on deaf ears, you want real eyeballs to see it, so everyday you’re working to promote that story and get as many eyeballs to see it as possible. You do that either by getting more Facebook or Twitter followers, or you can do it by syndicating your content to other outlets beyond just your own blog. For example, getting your story on the front page of Digg is a great way to get more eyeballs. Another component is all the technical stuff—running the site, adding features, making sure it can handle a large traffic load and grow with your traffic. And then there’s making money—primarily, about 90% of the time, that’s advertising and that’s a whole job right there of setting up systems and networks like Google Adsense, or working individually with companies to buy individual advertising on your site. And if you want other forms of revenue you can consider selling products that would interest your target audience, or partnerships with other companies, that sort of stuff. So those are the major components of running a site like mine.

You can see that for someone big like Gizmodo, you have at least one person taking care of each of those categories. Now you look at a company like mine, and you can see why it can be quite daunting for one person to break out and start up a blog—you don’t have a full budget, so you can’t really hire full-time staff. So my typical day is doing pretty much all those things. Fortunately, I’m uniquely positioned to do this—I have the IT expertise to build a website and run it. I have the confidence, or whatever you want to call it, to cold call companies and ask them to advertise on my site, and have 9 out of 10 tell me to go take a hike (laughs). I have the resources to find stories and get the content to go a long with them. Basically I’ve just spent the past year building a network of contacts in the industry. I’m also the editor, so I’ve got to read every story before it gets published. And I also take care of the business and financial aspects. So, yeah, it’s a lot.

Q: That’s pretty wild. How long would you say you’re on the clock each day?

A: There’s two ways to look at it really- if I didn’t have other obligations, I’d argue it’s a 24/7, around the clock job, if you enjoy it and want it to grow. Of course, I do have a family and other obligations, so I have a more normal approach to it. I work from about 7 am until about 4 or so. And even when I’m off the clock, I’m always connected, always interacting with potential contacts, getting potential story ledes into my phone. Always ready to put out fires if the site has a technical issue.

Q: How big is your company?

A: Right now it’s just me and one full-time employee who does most of our writing. But we’ve got an awful lot of guest posts, and I’ve experimented with part-time staff. But as soon as we get some more revenue up, my first expenditure is going to be to buy another writer so we can double our content.

Q: What are you’re thoughts on advertising as a main revenue source?

A: Advertising is still the main way, and it still works really well. I think it’s a very simple formula—the more people you have coming to your site, the more ad companies are going to want to be in front of those eyeballs. Blogs are way more profitable at this. You take one of the most successful blogs like TechCrunch—they have about 20 employees, and the revenue they make is probably up there with some traditional media companies that have a couple hundred employees. So if you get up there, you’ll be successful, but of course, it’s a big if, you have to get the eyeballs. Advertisers don’t want to talk to you if you don’t get a lot of eyeballs on your site everyday. Basically, you have to reach a certain size before it’s economically viable. But if you’re big enough, advertisers will be talking to you.

Q: What advice would you give to up-and-coming media entrepreneurs?

A: I would tell them, a lot has changed about the media industry, but a lot also hasn’t changed. One thing that hasn’t changed is that, if you make good quality content, there is going to be a market for it. One of the key ingredients to my success with the blog will be that we make good content. Some people will try to get cheaper labor and say “how bout we just have a website where volunteers write all day long”. Imagine if the Wall Street Journal did that, if they just said, “we’re going to find the cheapest writers we can find to increase profits.” Really, really quickly people would stop reading the Wall Street Journal.  So, you’ll have a future in this business if you focus on making good stuff that people want to read. Now, what is your future going to be? I mean I just showed you how hard it is to do what I do. You have to be able to wear a lot of hats, but not everyone can do that. So, really you’ve got to know it’s something that builds over time.