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Black Friday–Are We Seeing The Demise of Blogging Networks?

July 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

I have been watching the recent demise of one of my favorite blogging networks called Know More Media. A business blogging network with its focus on the business world. I have been reading Easton Ellsworth’s blog since it’s inception at Business Blog Wire. As I understand it they intend to discontinue paying their bloggers as of this Friday on August 1, 2008. An open letter from Jeremy Wright, CEO at b5Media to the leadership at Know More Media was my first alert to this happening. dead.jpg

I have also been following the rumors, innuendo and some of the people involved with the blogging network at Weblogs, Inc., a blog network company that was purchased by AOL, and the idea that they too may be stopping the payment to their bloggers for the content that they are providing. They are supposed to also learn their fate on August 1, 2008. I would say that this Friday could be referred to as Black Friday as it relates to the blog networking agencies.

What is the cause of this demise? I believe there are two components to this dilemma and it starts with the economy and the ad spends we are seeing in the online marketing realm. I too have felt the economic crunch with companies that were early adopters to enter into the social media arena. Experimental marketing such as the kind I provide, is usually the first to suffer the cuts of companies tightening their belts to prepare for the new downturn. Companies using blogs to market their products and services are still seeing the advertising as experimental not being able to yet show a return on their investment. Measurement of social media marketing is still in it’s infancy and companies are falling back on what they believed was working before they began to experiment and then experience tougher times. The economy has taken its toll. Advertisers are repositioning their budgets to go to something more stable and more quantifiable.

Another problem I see is the way blogging networks are managing their properties. Some of the companies that are in trouble with their networks are those companies that are not flexible and have the ability to move with the market. The leadership of these companies are beginning to see what happens when you rest upon your laurels and get too comfortable with a business plan that really must grow with its market and adapt to market changes. Leadership continues to take profit and not go back to those leaner times. In addition, since the sale of Weblogs, Inc., we have seen the emergence of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace and the explosive emergence of microblogging sites such as Twitter and other applications. These blogging networks must also evolve to adapt these tools to make them a part of their own properties. They may have some components in place, but for the most part relying on their bloggers to keep them profitable is a tough chore for those bloggers and it will not last forever.

What do I see for the future of the likes of blogging Networks? I see smaller niche networks fracturing off to make single networks and written by perhaps multiple bloggers. We are seeing the emergence now of social sites such as in the food realm, the sports realm, and the automobile industry and other hobby type sites. The mommy blogs have embraced the idea of community and are some of the best in the business at making a social group made of many bloggers. The only problem we are seeing is the bloggers themselves are not making money from these groups. It’s an advertising property for the owners. Groups that are joining as a member/friend/follower of the group as a whole are becoming their own target market. They are generating content for the group and it all ends up in one place. They have built in forums for discussion, they have feeds that are brought in from each member of their own member blogs, and they have a Facebook look with each community member owning a certain part of the real estate. We see it now with FriendFeed Groups and other places.

Some of the players like b5 and others are still able to show profits because they have positioned themselves to give the best product. I believe even b5 has adjustments that they make on a regular basis to bring in new properties and cutting off the parts of the network that are bringing their number down. A type of survival of the fittest as it relates to their participating core. The problems we face have to do with metrics and what those with money see as the value. I have heard tell that those that have a target audience with the most impressions are the most valuable and are riding that wave. It seems Jeremy Wright is able to continue to surf that wave.

What do you think. What is the new thing to replace networks? Do you think networks are here to stay? As we all become our own citizen journalists, how can we monetize that content, or is their a different way of thinking for advertisers. These are questions I get and wrestle with on a regular basis. Any ideas?

[photo via Benny Bloomfield]

Filed Under: Advertising, Blog Metrics, Blog Revenue, Blogonomics, Marketing, Media, Professional Blogging, Services, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Technorati Changing The Way It Does Business

February 29, 2008 By 1 Comment

richardjalichandra Technorati has been an icon of the blogosphere since Dave Sifry began the company to track blogs and provide bloggers with statistics and search.  It was the first thing people downloaded to their blogs, and the first part of setting up a blog.  They seem to have lost that celebrity status.  There are so many companies that have been cracking away at that Technorati keystone that it appears they may crumble.  I have been waiting to hear some news from the Technorati camp and it appears that news is bubbling up as reported by TechCrunch.

When I talked with Richard Jalinchandra in Las Vegas at the Blog World Expo in November, he mentioned then that Technorati was in for some changes and that he wanted to lead the company back to its glory days.  He couldn’t talk then about what he was doing but it seems that the cool stuff I expected and the things the head of marketing, Aaron Krane,  talked about on my Social Mediapshere radio show would make them a shining star again.  I didnt expect them to enter the advertising arena.

Tris an I questioned them on why they were not indexing search results past six months and it looks like they may be rethinking that with adding an advertising component to their search.  Arrington states:

Technorati will certainly be competing head to head with FM, although sources say they’ll focus on the long tail of the market as well (FM only takes larger sites). The network will be a self-serve exchange for bloggers (and other publishers) as well as advertisers. Ad units will include both display and text ads, and will allow units to be charged on both a CPM and CPC basis. (emphasis added)

I was hoping that Technorati would be adding some features that would be more than just another way for bloggers to add a revenue component to their blogs.  I want to see them return to an application I would run to five times a day because they offered a way to see stats and a something that was cool to experience as I did back in the day.

This is part of the reason I have hooked my wagon to the folks at Lijit*.  I certainly see that they have ideas to make their “wijit” something that is a first add-on to a blog.  I am not sensing that Technorati has that coolness factor in mind.  I certainly understand that after raising $20M in funding you might want to start thinking of making money and perhaps they will change the way they run their business and we have only seen the beginning of their new glory days.  It appears Richard is doing his job of CEO and is running the company in the best interest of those investors, but I for one want to see them do some things they used to do, only better.  Don’t make it about the page views make it about the blogger and a company that every blogger loves to use.

[photo via Brian Solis]

*Lijit is a client and I do some evangelism for them.

Filed Under: Advertising, Blog Metrics, Blog Revenue, Blog Tools, Blogging News, Blogonomics, Business Blogging, Marketing, Mediasphere Radio, Social Media

Startup Companies Making Money From Free

February 20, 2008 By 2 Comments

I have been thinking about the comment left on my post about Blog Talk Radio and their attempt at monetizing their application.  Then I read today over at HipMojo the article about why companies that are basing themselves on ad revenue will fail.  It helped me formulate my own opinion about how companies in the tech world are struggling with making money.  It is a dance that seems hard to learn.

The game plan seems to be along these syllogistic lines.

  • Come up with an application that fills a need.
  • Develop the application.
  • Launch it and see if it scales, get user feedback and adjust its use accordingly.
  • Begin to build your user base until you reach some determined tipping point number. (This is probably the most difficult step in the overall business plan.)

These are the initial outlines I have seen.  During this period you may have an angel investment or a small first round to get to the tipping point number.  The next step is where it gets tricky.  Now that we are at our initial goal, how do we make it profitable?

Companies have built the trust and admiration of their users by providing a great application that is free and useful.  The users are making it an integral part of their lives.  The company has developed and gathered this large community.  They must leverage that into real money.  As I see it, they have but two choices, advertise or begin charging for the service they once before gave away for free.  A blend of these two would be a third choice.

Advertisers want eyeballs and reach.  The users are what they seek, and the more the better.  It’s all about the page views and the numbers generated from people.  Fewer users, the less they pay for your real estate.  Increasing page views and users increases revenue.  This is a hard fact as CEO’s try to guide the company to profitability.  If an application has 100,000 users it is worth more to an advertiser than 10,000 users.  Companies sell to advertisers and tell them, “We have 100,000 users at X amount of page views.”  The media buyers line up for those numbers.  Problem is, companies such as Blog Talk Radio have to sell based on those numbers, but then they must get the customer or users to get behind the plan. If they ask the users permission perhaps they only have 50,000 of the 100,000 users that will allow ads.  Now their property is worth 50% less to advertisers, and they don’t make money at that level.

Their second choice.  They begin charging the users for using the service.  Or as I indicated above the third choice, charging those that elect not to have advertising on the application a premium. The third choice allowing both opt in and opt out income.  This is risky as you may chase off users that were really sold on the application that was free, but not so warm to paying a fee for the service, or having advertisements show up on a usually clean page. 

It’s a chess match played by advertisers and CEO’s and ultimately users.  How can they all be happy?  I’m not sure that is entirely possible but their must be a compromise somewhere.  Companies are struggling to be profitable, advertisers are cutting their spend to increase their return on their own investment, and meanwhile, the user holds the power of being part of the community and whether the user wants to sell their eyeballs.

I have been touting 2008 as “The Year of The User.”  Companies have been building their user base.  The power the users hold with their attention and their eyeballs and presence make the other parties to the dance want to court them.  I’m not sure the answer, but I think ultimately it will raise the cost of advertising, and may force a new metric not based upon the number of eyeballs and page views.  Who flinches first has not been determined.

Filed Under: Advertising, Blog Metrics, Blog Revenue, Blogonomics, Marketing, Media, Mediasphere Radio, Partnerships, Services, Social Media

Searching For A Local Business: Old vs. New

September 10, 2007 By 1 Comment

yellowpages3 I can remember the first time I had my name appear in the phone book after I purchased my first home.  Like Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk”, I danced around and shouted, “I’m somebody now”.  Back then of course, I think computers were something in sci-fi movies, and the Internet had not yet been thought about.  But I can still see that brand new version of the white pages all clean and crisp with my name right there alongside the other 30 people that shared my name.

I was recently watching television when the new Dex advertisement came on and I had a trip down memory lane.  I am still amazed that anyone would be spending much time looking at a Yellow page book in the modern era of finding everything through search.  I think the last time I used a yellow pages directory it was for a booster seat for the kids to reach the table better. 

Then I saw a related article recently put out by eMarketer.com.  The article states that online local advertising will reach 2.9 billion in 2007, which is only 13.4% of the total online advertising market.  The study and article are an interesting look at local advertising.  It made me wonder about the dollars being spent on traditional offline products such as the yellow pages.  I also wondered whether what they were being told about the results they would get as business owners and placing the ads.

I can remember the game back in the day of Yellow page advertising, companies wanted to somehow be listed first in their niche.  If they had a plumbing business, they would call it AAA Plumbing, because then they would be listed as the first alphabetical result listing in the book.  We are not that far off now with the way companies are clamoring for that all important number 1 placement in search results.  Now we are doing it with SEO and other tactics.  The ideal is still the same and that is to be that first listed business under plumbing.  Even though advertising is drastically changing since the old days, in some respects it stays the same.

Filed Under: Advertising, Blog Consulting, Blog Metrics, Blog Mining, Blog Revenue, Blog Tools, Business Blogging, Findability, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Services

Social Networks: Has Big Brother Arrived?

August 8, 2007 By 1 Comment

orwell1984 For some time, I have been wondering about all of the data that is exchanged on the Internet between individuals and companies and what is being done with that data, and where it is being stored and what it is being used for and who has access to it.  At the risk of sounding somewhat like a conspiracy theorist, I have a nagging feeling that somehow we are in for a rude awakening in this country as it relates to our privacy and our anonymity in our life.

facebook This thought surfaced again as a result of a video by Loren Feldman and his friend Michelle’s take on the use of Facebook.  I’ll let you judge her reaction, but it seems that she represents a normal adopter of a social network.  I say normal because of the issues of the technical elite and the early adopters that are all but normal with new applications.  She innocently typed in her email address and password and suddenly realized that the application had just accessed all of public, private, known and unknown contacts that she has ever sent an email to with that email address.  Yes, she was a little taken aback by that, and she should be.

What are these companies doing with every keystroke and each of the addresses that pop up in a window of every adopter of their application.  Am I to think that their promise of “we won’t tell, cross our heart and hope to die” is supposed to make me not question what exactly is being done with that data?  Michelle is just but one user, now think of the access to all of the users in Facebook and the data becomes a staggering look into the lives of all of us.

Facebook tells me who is talking out there, and what they are saying, who is a friend I have in common with another friend, and it knows the opinions of those friends, and whether I agree with them.  It can access my credit cards when I buy a $1 gif image of a ice cream cone I send to a friend.  I am afraid to say that Facebook knows more about me than my own mother.  Think of the data acquired now in the wrong hands…”Conspiracy Theory”, not really, but I’m sure we’ll see a Crichton book and movie deal about the idea and what can happen.

UPDATE:  I couldn’t find this video in my original post but was able to find it later.  Big Brother can be very scary.

Filed Under: Blog Metrics, Blog Mining, Findability, Marketing, Media, Social Media

Google Is The Number 1 Lead Generator

July 23, 2007 By Leave a Comment

logo-Google At least in our company, we get most of our client’s through Google searches done by companies looking for a blogging consultant or looking to hire a blogger for their company.  I ran through our client list to see the number of companies that have contacted us to provide a professional blogger or to consult them on a social media campaign.  One of the things that struck me was that a large number of them that had reached us or found us as a result of a Google search.

The conversation that prompted me to look at this in this light was a phone call from a prospective client.  We had discussed our services and he was happy with our business model and thought that we would probably do business in the future.  He then told that he had a difficult time finding a service such as ours, but eventually had found it through search.  He explained the roundabout way he happened upon our site, and I recognized a common theme to his search.  Everyone of the other clients had a similar story.

As a small business without a corps of sale people and without a huge marketing budget and a advertising team providing our message, we rely solely upon word of mouth, and being findable.  I preach the same to each of our clients.  In order for your business to be successful, it has to be findable.  It’s nice to see the sermon actually works for me as well.

 

Filed Under: Advertising, Blog Consulting, Blog Metrics, Blog Mining, Blog Revenue, Blog Tips, Blog Tools, Bloggers and Blogs, Bloggers For Hire, Blogging News, Blogs and PR, Business Blogging, Client Sites, Companies Needing Blogs, Corporate Blogs, Findability, Marketing, Media, Search Engine Optimization, Services, Social Media

The Death and Perhaps Destruction of a Social Network: A Sad But True Story

July 20, 2007 By 3 Comments

soflowlogo In the early part of 2005, I became a member of a social network called Soflow.  This social network was an early vision of its founders.  They could see the future and power of growing one’s profile and gathering contacts for business, and other benefits.  I thought that it was such a good idea, I also invested some of my own time and energy to become a moderator of a group within the network called “Blog Buzz”. 

We would discuss everything doing with the blogosphere and itsblogbuzz_small affect on  business, including advertising, marketing and PR.  The group became 220 members strong and this was before the time of mass invitations we see now with social networks.  There were over 150 forums started and some great conversations took place as a result.  Many advertisers, marketers and PR people were able to enter into the forum and ask simple questions, difficult questions, and ask for suggestions on growing a blog readership, what platforms were available and what blogs could do and what they were capable of accomplishing.  I decided it was important enough of a group to migrate it over and make it a Facebook Group.

Adrants was also a group located in the Soflow network and it had over 4000+ members according to Steve Hall.  It was probably the largest group in the network, but nonetheless, following what people are saying now about the networks’ demise, it’s like losing your favorite pet.  People love to have a place to go and talk with like minded people.  This is what makes social networks so popular.  It’s like a 24/7 cocktail hour. 

 So what are they going to do with all of the data, and all of the information and the gathering of people that have joined in Soflow? At this point it is unclear.  Perhaps the back end will throw a switch and all of that information and wonderful and informative content will be lost.  It this point I know that that principals appear to be moving on to a new application and have asked all of the members to migrate to anwisdmlogo application called Wis.dm.  My feeling is that the people at Soflow could not compete with the likes of Facebook or Myspace, and decided that they could not keep a hold on the people that they had nor could they garner more subscribers.   Wis.dm is obviously not the same type of network as Soflow, but perhaps it was the business model that they wanted to change.  It makes me wonder why there was no purchase of the network or perhaps a merging with Facebook or another network.  The doors close on Soflow on July 31, 2007.  I hope I can resurrect the group to continue the conversation.

 

Filed Under: Advertising, Announcements, Blog Consulting, Blog Metrics, Blog Platforms, Blog Revenue, Blog Tips, Blog Tools, Bloggers and Blogs, Blogging News, Blogs and PR, Business Blogging, Marketing, Media, Social Media

FeedBurner Total Stats Pro and MyBrand services now free–and the Blogosphere cheers!

July 4, 2007 By Leave a Comment

It’s no secret that Jim and I are huge fans of FeedBurner.  It’s also no secret that I am a web metrics wonk.  I’ve been paying for FB’s Total Stats Pro since it came out.  I love the (nearly) real-time data, dashboard views, and level of detail.  It’s all just right for my day-to-day stats needs.  When I need to really geek out, I hit Google Analytics.  Yesterday the folks at FB announced that these two key subscription services are now free–Burning Questions ? FreeBurner for Everyone!

How awesome is that?!?  No, I’m not pissed that I’ve been paying for a year plus and now it’s free for everyone.  My subscription helped FB show that it had a viable business model, which attracted Google to buy it, which led to the services becoming free.

Now I need to go and switch a bunch of stuff on so I can capture the level of detail on all the sites we manage.

If you are a client of OBO’s and we’re not managing your blog and feed…you might be missing out on some great data.

Filed Under: Blog Metrics, Bloggers and Blogs, RSS

The Digg Nation Not My Blog Log Community

June 24, 2007 By 3 Comments

digg A couple of days ago, Tris wrote a blog post for the b5Media blog he writes for at Pimp Your Work, and the post made it to page 1 of Digg.  In that post he did a link to this site as an example of how to  do an email signature.  As a result, the all the people at Digg also came to this site following the link.  The mention caused us to get approximately 100 people an hour visiting the blog.

I followed along with the spike in traffic and looked a little at where the people that were coming to the site were coming from and looking at patterns.  I checked the analytics, and was wondering if this increased our subscribers or perhaps whether it made for more readers that would return. 

mybloglog Finally, I looked over at the My Blog Log widget in our sidebar and it dawned on me that the visitors it showed had not changed for most of the day.  Those of you that know how that widget works, when you visit a site with the widget installed, and you are also a member of the My Blog Log community, your avatar shows in the widget.  I explain this because with hundreds of new visitors that day, none of them were members of My Blog Log.  This meant that the people at Digg (what we call the Digg Nation) are not also members of the My Blog Log Community.

This makes me wonder if people go with one social network and stay with that network, not also belonging to other groups.  Do people go with Facebook and not also go with MySpace?  If you use one tool do you not always use a competitor tool?  One thing for sure, with all of those visitors, if they had been My Blog Log members, that widget would have been smoking.

 

Filed Under: Blog Metrics, Blog Mining, Blog Tools, Blogs and PR, Findability, Marketing, Media, Social Media

Everyone Needs Good Metrics: Google Analytics Makes It Easy

June 16, 2007 By 2 Comments

 You might think web/blog metrics are only for the geeky set, but really the days of arcane and generally useless stats are pretty much gone.  This post from Beth Kanter explains how GA is helping a small non-profit meet the needs of their clients:

As part of some research for a screencast on Google Analytics for NTEN, I gave a shout out to folks asking for examples.  (BTW, if you are looking to learn more about how to use Google Analytics, I highly recommend the Webinar that NTEN is offering next Wednesday with Avinash Kaushik.)

Laura Whitehead, Chief Officer at South Hams CVS responded with lots to share.  Here’s how she is using the tool for decision-making.  What is amazing is that she has obviously created a data driven culture in her organization.  Thank you Laura for sharing your knowledge! Source: Beth’s Blog: How Laura Whitehead of South Hams CVS has created a data driven culture in her Nonprofit using Google Analytics

After using lots of different metrics apps, I’ve settled on Google Analytics and FeedBurner’s feed and blog stats (of course FeedBurner is now a part of Google).  Why?  These apps are easy to “install” on a blog (generally just inserting a bit of code into the footer of the template), run on their own (GA is delayed by a day and FB’s blog data is live, feed 24 hrs), and easy to understand.

Jeremiah has been looking at metrics too…I’ll have to listen/watch his show to if I have anything to add to his recommendations.

Filed Under: Blog Metrics, Blog Tools
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