Winona County boy building his own online empire

FREMONT TOWNSHIP, Minn. – Bailey Bestul is not your typical technology blogger. Nor your typical country boy. For the past couple of years, the Winona County sixth-grader has been writing for his own website, building an international following with his thoughts on everything from the latest Apple product to his summer vacation. He makes videos and even sells clothing, though he says he’s not interested in profit – just marketing.
He talks about page views and search engine optimization – tricks for getting his website to show up in Google searches. Send him an e-mail and you’ll get an auto-response thanking you for contacting Bailey Bestul at BNet Productions and informing you that a personal response will be forthcoming within 48 hours. He might also end an e-mail request with “please reply if it’s either a yes or a no” – just in case you forgot, this mogul is barely out of elementary school.
Recently, while analyzing his site’s traffic, he noticed hits from all over the world, but not many from Minnesota. So he decided to contact local media to generate some publicity. “When he wants to do something, he just goes ahead and does it,” said his mother, Shari Bestul. “He’s very bold. He’ll just write.”
According to his blog bio, Bailey Bestul is “a website and a webshow host in the middle of nowhere!”
The middle of nowhere is his parents’ house about halfway between Lewiston and Rushford. There’s woods to roam in, and the neighbors up the road have a swimming pool, though Bailey spends most of his free time online. “I try to drag him out more, but he’d rather be on his computer,” Shari said. Bailey, 11, started playing on the family computer when he was in first grade after he got a Build-A-Bear stuffed animal and went to Build-A-Bearville, a site where kids can play games and interact. One day he saw a message about another kid’s blog. His first thought: “I have to get one.” He learned about WordPress.com, a blog hosting site, and set up his own under his online persona, Jared Adventure. Initially he wrote about Build-A-Bearville and events in his life, like summer
vacation. In fifth grade, he and a classmate started another blog about a popular playground game at Rushford-Peterson Elementary. His teacher, Pat Hatlevig, even had Bailey give a presentation about his blog to a group of teachers from districts across the state studying uses of technology in the classroom. “He’s a pretty sharp cookie,” Hatlevig said. Bailey even helped his father, Scott, a writer for Field Stream, start blogging and has been pushing him to launch his own website.
“He’s kind of our technical adviser,” Scott said.Though his primary interest is technology, Bailey’s focus wanders. Lately he’s begun dabbling in product reviews, writing to various companies and requesting sample merchandise to review. Sure, it’s a
way to get free stuff, like the soft-serve ice cream maker that arrived this week, but he’s serious about the reviews, figuring out evaluation criteria.
Since discovering YouTube, he and his twin sister, Brooke, have begun a web show featuring their skits, which Bailey scripts, films and edits. Brooke said she enjoys making the videos, but it’s not her life’s calling. “I think that this is just a little thing to do now,” she said. “I want to be a doctor.” As for Bailey, his sights are set on a career in entertainment. “I might do some directing,” he said. “But I like being in front of the camera.”

Article source: http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_5e03c312-2062-11e0-bd68-001cc4c03286.html