As the sun rose this morning we had Duncan Riley leaving b5media, and now before the sun can set in the west I hear news of Jason Calacanis leaving AOL. Is this all growing pains that blog networks will continue to see over the next few months? Has the blog network bubble began its demise or is there a bursting of the blog network bubble? I believe the answers to be yes and no, respectively.
We are now seeing some of the visionaries of blog networks begin to fall away as the leaders of the early adopters and we are now seeing the blog network child learn to walk instead of crawl. We can soon see it begin to learn to skip and finally run as big business and the almighty dollar turn it into the bastard son of capitalization. Jason’s departure is not shocking, he is an entrepreneur and will not stayed tied down long in any business. He is out to set a new watermark in another industry perhaps, but I can assure you Jason will land on his feet and he too will be running shortly. As for blog networks, I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Tags: AOL, Jason Calacanis, Weblogs, Inc., blog networks, blogging bubble, Duncan Riley, b5media
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You make their departures sound very romantic…”visionaries of blog networks” and all. However, word is that Duncan was fired unceremoniously, and who knows about Calacanis. Can he just up and leave with $20 million of AOL’s cash in the bank? In either case, it wasn’t pretty.
As to blog networks, I don’t see a great future for them for two reasons: First, it seems to me that many of the marketable niches have already been filled. I mean, do we really need yet another gadget blog?
Second, as a business model, blog networks survive on advertising income, not unlike other, more traditional, forms of publishing.
Without sufficient traffic there is little income to be accrued through Adsense or other PPC venues. Advertisers will be reluctant to sponsor sites that don’t generate lots of traffic either.
I used to write for Weblogs Inc, and I can tell you, if it weren’t for Engadget and a handful of the other, more popular, blogs WIN may not have survived.
While I realize blogs are niche-marketing tools and that it’s not always the “quantity” of readers that counts, but the “quality” in terms of influence, blog networks that are largely consumer-oriented still rely on lots of traffic to earn more than a pittance for the blogger(s) and publisher alike. It really is all about the numbers, in my view.
Feel free to debunk my argument. I’d really like to be proved wrong.
I would like to say you were wrong about the idea that netwoprks are about numbers to advertisers. I think that observation is spot on. I have not seen where a CPM of 1,000 page views a week has garnered any lines of advertisers waiting to get onto an influential blog of that nature. There are certain niche blogs that don’t have the traffic but do have influence. Those blogs are far and few between.
I do however argue that blog networks have run their course. Yes, they are evolving into a different animal each day, and these animals are transmogrifying into new hybrids everyday. I for one believe that the future of blog networks will be networks that are in a micro-niche. Right now we see blog networks with a shotgun approach. Launch it and if it hits the mark keep it, if not dump it and launch something else until it works.
The blogs that work will then be grouped into mini-networks or blogozines I think I called Syntagma’s idea. We are seeing a new form of publishing online through the use of blogs. This is what I as a visionary believe. But who knows I cold just be blinded by all that $$$$$$$.
Not trying to play devil’s advocate, but if blog networks morph into “micro” networks, how will that offset the other point to which you agreed — specifically that blog networks need mammoth amounts of traffic to turn a profit?
The more tightly niched something becomes, the less likely it is to garner a broad readership base. Blogs have traditionally appealed to nano-audiences. At the same time, I realize that exploiting niches enables one to tap deeply into the respective niche.
That’s why I believe blog networks have gone after niches with wide consumer appeal…i.e., they must generate traffic and lots of it. That is, if advertising is the revenue model upon which the business is based.
One last word, Jim. In my opinion, it’s best to let someone else hail you as a visionary rather than to do so yourself.