People need medication to relieve their pain.
People don’t need another way to bookmark and share websites.

People need to learn about their options in battling cancer.
People don’t need to learn about their options for microblogging.

As a technology evangelist, I feel weird saying all this, but really, think about it. Back pain is a problem that has existed since human existence. Social media overload and noise is a problem that has existed for a year, maybe two tops. It’s important to solve the new problems we’ve created with the Internet, but it’s still more important to solve the problems that can kill us.

I’m not saying start a health website – follow your passion, always. But I want you to think and understand why so many technology blogs have low eCPMs and health websites the opposite. Learn from that.

If you’re writing about technology and want to make a living off of it, you need to help solve a problem people actually have. If you’re aspiring to start the next Google, you need to solve an actual problem, not a niche problem. Manage your expectations based on how many people actually have that problem.

Just a little something I’ve picked up working for a web health company.

- Ben