As a result of the Lott story, traffic to "Talking Points Memo" spiked from 8,000 to 20,000 page views a day. In the fall of 2003, as people focused on the failure to find WMD's in Iraq, there was a new surge of traffic to the site; "I remember there being peak days of 60,000-page views, which was really incredible." Marshall started selling ads on his site and by the end of 2004 was earning $10,000 a month, making him one of a handful of what "The New York Times Magazine" dubbed "elite bloggers" who earned enough money to make blogging a full-time occupation.