MediaVidea

A timeline of blog acquisitions

Labels: Blog networks, blogging

posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:11 PM 2 Comments

Pulitzer for Blogs: Revisting the Blogitzers

In April 2007, I wrote about the idea of Blogitzers - Pulitzers for Blogging. Now that the Pulitzer Prizes in the United States have announced they will accept entries from Online Only publications, I paid my old post a visit. I had written that if we had the Blogitzers up and running, we should have awarded the following:

- the blogger who helped bring Don Emus to book.
- the Newsvine user who brought the Virginia Tech shooting to front page.
- The blogger in India who brought attention to the alleged misdeeds at a supposed premier business school.
- Bloggers in Egypt who are standing up to the dual opposition of an autocratic government and muslim hardliners.
- Bloggers who converted their blogs into successful books.
- Blogger who helped bring a new music talent in public eye.

How I would promote the Blogitzers:
This would encourage people to go after the real stories rather than indulging in navel-gazing political stories and odd opinion stuff. We have enough of the Friedmans and Gladwells.

I know doing investigative journalism involves time and money but at least this would be a start. I would go ahead, tie up with Lulu.com or Blurb.com, build a separate site for the Blogitzers and sell books based on the award winning stories written by the winners and ensuring that winners got the maximum money from sale of their books, avoiding as much middleman-related grime as possible.

I would love to listen to what you think about the Blogitzers.

Labels: Blog networks, blogitzers, blooks, books, pulitzers

posted by Pramit Singh @ 9:54 PM 0 Comments

How (not) to create a new media empire

Having religiously covered the three Gs of blogging topics so far- namely, Gossip, Gadgets and Girls, Nick Denton, the owner of Gawker media group knows what sells in the news business. His approach to New Media Empire building is bearing good, hold on, stupendous results.

Nick has just posted a chart showing how Gawker is the fourth largest online media empire.

But, is Nick Denton's way the only way? According to the chart, Gawker is behind the New York Times, USA Today and Washington Post, ahead of Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

We keep reading about the trouble the newspapers are in - the layoffs are an obvious point of coverage. But, we should not forget the amount of money these news brands have invested in the best reporting talent, especially in the service reporting field - going out there and reporting the best the reader is concerned about.

It takes real money to go out in the field, say Iraq and bring out the stories.

Is Gawker Media taking the armchair route to media empire success?
This is the question for the media experts to answer.

Supporters (there are many) of Nick's scrappy approach to New Media empire building will say that the New York Times 'subsidizes' its serious reportage with earnings from its Food and Lifestyle coverage and from About.com.

By that token, shall we expect Nick Denton to fund a serious journalism kind of initiative? I won't bet my meagre collection of Sachin Tendulkar posters on that happening.

Related story: In the valley of smut: the new Valleywag story

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, gawker, new media, news 2.0, nick denton, valleywag

posted by Pramit Singh @ 7:46 PM 1 Comments

In the valley of smut: the new Valleywag story

I feel disappointed by the smutty direction lately taken up by Valleywag. From the time when Nick Douglas started as the first writer for Valleywag (he has left for Gawker), I admired Valleywag's gumption when it provided the anti-dote to the Web 2.0 pied pipers, my name for the likes of Techcrunch and its copycats.

I still remember when Valleywag punched holes in the Second Life story when everyone else considered it be the next Microsoft, sort of.

Now that Uncov.com is no more, we needed Valleywag more than ever to poke more holes in startups' strategies, pick out research analysts posing as Einsteins, and find the real story behind all that navel gazing nonsense that passes as normal in the Valley.

Till date, none of the big web 2.0 blogs has managed to completely upgrade to service reporting. Techcrunch will report any startup news it can get its hands on. ReadWriteWeb will continue its high-theme, analytical approach. Mashable is building upon its lists and Gigaom is somewhere in the middle but no web 2.0 blog has managed to do it all.

We needed Valleywag to present the other side of bland storytelling on all those web 2.0 blogs. Techcrunch, the erstwhile 'pied piper', has managed to do some 'serious' reporting of late.

Things have changed at Valleywag. I think the writers over there are not being able to cope up with blog moghul Nick Denton's “Traffic-at-all-cost” dictat.

Result: smut is all around.
Geeks and their love life - that is all the rage.

To analyze Valleywag's current editorial direction, I put Monday's Valleywag page through a Tag Cloud generator. A brief look at most popular terms:

porn 5 (mentions)
meghan asha 5
meghan 9
Julia allison 9
sex 3
geek love 3
gay porn 2
girlfriend 3
sucks 3
jimmy wales 11

The only useful entry that came nearest:

google health 4

I should not be disappointed. It was Valleywag's destiny.
After all, it is supposed to be the Silicon Valley's favorite gossip rag.

Being the Valley's beacon for truth was never the agenda, huh?

http://valleywag.com/

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, tag cloud, techcrunch, trends, valleywag

posted by Pramit Singh @ 7:11 PM 1 Comments

The end for Bloggers vs. Journalists idea?

Going by current evidence, the bloggers vs. journalists fight is dead. When they will explain this in future Media History Classes, it will be said that slowly but surely, bloggers and journalists picked out the best practices from each other, and at the same time they managed to stay true to their respective ethos.

Without having to give up their reporters' hard work ethic, journalists are learning to take themselves less seriously, opening up to outside views and opinions in the comments below their blog posts. Forever proud of their freewheeling, hugely personal styles, bloggers are looking to reporters to do more reportage that is original and provide breaking news for their blog properties.

For more, read this in Mediashift and find out more about how mainstream news organizations are launching blogs for their reporters and blog network owners are hiring big name reporters to beef up their news operations, doing their best to more Service reporting.

It will not be a futile exercise if we looked forward to more news and more writers.

Graphic courtesy Blogumentary

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, news 2.0, trends

posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:47 PM 0 Comments

The State of Citizen Journalism in India Part 1 – blogs, photos and videos

Everyone is a reporter now. This is fast turning out to be a cliche and thus, it does not surprise me to find that Citizen Journalism in India is thriving across different platforms and Indians are happy to use any tool they can get their hands on – blogs, blog networks, photo sites, video sites, mobiles...what else you got?

Task oriented by nature, Indians are delightfully platform-agnostic and have taken to reporting for Television news and Mobile reporting in a big way. In this article, the first of a three-part series on the State of Citizen Journalism in India, I will cover blog, photos and videos.

Freeing Citizen Journalism from platforms
It is best to see Citizen Journalism free from the constraints imposed by most so-called platforms. Citizen Journalism is not just limited to sites such as Ohmynews.com, Nowpublic.com, Newassignment.net and ‘destination’ sites. Having said that, I am not implying that there is anything wrong with these bold, fine services.

Where does the Indian Citizen Journalist choose to speak out, giving all of us engaging alternatives to the mainstream news here in India, which some have charitably coined as '95% drivel & 5 % news'.

Citizen Journalism Destination Sites
Two big sites come to mind. Merinews.com, backed by IT entrepreneurs is very active with citizen journalism, although it is jarring to see Citizen Journalism as just another link on the navigation bar.

Instablogs.com, which has been around since October 2005, has better design and publishes stories from Citizen Reporters from November 2006. Instablogs is different in the sense that it pays for the stories it accepts to publish. Disclosure: I was the founding Managing Editor at Instablogs till October 2006.

Blogging platforms
The big three Indian portals Sulekha, Rediff and Indiatimes provide blogging tools to their readers and the activity is quite high.

Blogging Collectives
They are groups of bloggers who post interesting links on a common site. Started by US-based Indian students, Desipundit.com is a pioneering site in the field. Blogbharti.com was launched in 2007 and is doing quite well.

Blogging collectives are important and in my opinion can play a greater role if they have a Digg-like news submission and ratings section. Groups have proven to be the reason for success of social news sites such as Digg and Reddit (although, they can be abd thing as well, if they start taking themselves too seriously, blocking out all opposing points of views)

Teaching Villagers to be Citizen Journalists
Sweta Singh, who comes from the state of Bihar, one of the poorest places in India (I come from the same state) but now works in New Delhi has started on a noble mission of training citizen journalism to women panchayat (local village council) leaders in Bihar. The ‘MYOWN’ initiative is an experiment and Sweta is funding the initiative herself.

Student Bloggers
They are very active on blogger.com and wordpress.com and most are active participants on social networking sites including Orkut.com and I include social networking sites because Indians are very passionate about their heroes and issues and controversies centered around groups supporting this & that person/issue often spill out onto blogs and so on…

Recently News TV channel CNN-IBN launched the CNN-IBN Forum for Students. Purporting to be a platform for students to speak out, it appears to be a branding exercise as there are just a limited number of student bloggers and one is not sure how to sigh up, which is a pity.

So far, no news channel or newspaper has opened up a platform for Citizen Journalists in India, something along the lines of CNN’s recently launched iReport initiative. It seems like I will have to be content with seeing every big newspaper flashing mobile numbers and email addresses where everyone can send in stories.

Doc Holliday has reportedly said,

“My hypocrisy will only take me so far.”

Using blogging to bring change
There are some deep systemic problems with India. In the two-way avatar of the internet, citizens have a platform for their voice. They are no more dependent upon mainstream media, many of whom may dither to publish (and annoy) the powers to be.

In a recent report on e-democracy, the Economist newspaper wrote, “Citizens are not only the state's customers; they are also its owners.”

I look forward to the next level of Citizen Journalism in India:
Using web 2.0 tools to monitor government offices, government officials, voting records/attendance records of elected officials, allocation and usage of funds, who is in cahoots with whom,… it is a big list of things that must be monitored collectively by the public.

I look forward to mobile pictures and videos of Government Servants demanding or accepting bribes. Online video is an expensive proposition, I suggest using Youtube.

Moving on.

Like I said before, Citizen Journalists of India, and elsewhere in the world, do not need big platforms to speak out. The tools to speak out are plenty and are free.

Some places where you can find the Indian Citizen Journalist on a daily basis:

India on Nowpublic.com
India on digg.com
India on del.icio.us
India on Flickr
India blogs
India on Youtube
India on Technorati
15,957 blogs about india

Related article
Who are the top Indian Bloggers?

Updates:
1. I think I must mention how Indian bloggers took up the IIPM scandal in earnest. More here. [disclosure repeat: I was the Managing Editor at Instablogs at the time.]

2. Governments will try to muzzle the Citizen's voice on the slightest of pretexts. For example, in the aftermath ofkx the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts, the Government of India decided to ban some blogs but the ISPs inadvertently blocked all blogs hosted on Blogspot. I am positive that this is not the last time we have seen a heavyhanded government at work.

Coming next: Part 2 of the State of Citizen Journalism in India, where I take up TV and Radio. In Part 3, I have covered the exciting phenomenon of Mobile and Micro Blogging.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, citizen journalism, india, news 2.0

posted by Pramit Singh @ 12:38 PM 4 Comments

What will happen next: Rounding up the 30 best predictions for New Media 2008

These are 30 of the best predictions about the internet business in 2008 that I have had the opportunity to read this week. As I mentioned in January 2007, a phase of consolidation is on in the web 2.0 field, this BBC story makes some interesting points about it, and I see no reasons to think otherwise.

I only wish that more people get a chance to make a better living through online publishing.
So far the internet is dominated by a few of the so-called Plantations (thank you Nick Carr).

1. Giant Blog Publishing House Takes Birth: TechCrunch + GigaOm + VentureBeat + Read/Write Web

2. Cash Rich Media buys more into successful blogs.

3. Clicks & Bricks back in vogue, in true web 2.0 style, of course.

4. Books are very much in (Lulu.com self publishing, print on, small magazines, rss subscriptions, and Kindle?).

As Bill Murray once said about computers, "we are reading more on the screen", or something to that effect.

5. "Friendiligence" will be hot: we will conduct due diligence on friend requests on Facebook, Myspace and all other me-too social networks.

6. "MicroTubing" zindabaad: More and more small publishers (mostly single person startups) using innovative video content to prosper.

7. Google Buys an Ad Agency: WPP?

8. The Wall Street Journal will follow NYT and go free online.

10. Large magazines, part of large publishing conglomerates will fold at a higher rate than 2007 and Niche, targeted titles will flourish.

11. Internationalized Domains Names become more and more popular (as sensible .com names become more scarce, expensive and crazy)

12. Someone from among the troika of News Corp, Microsoft or EBay buys Yahoo.

13. Another Twitter-like success, coded by a 20-year genius kid (no hope for us 30-somethings) will rule users' hearts, with a similarly simple interface (and hopefully better productivity and healthy monetization prospects)

14. Ajax will get serious or people will dismiss it for a time-waster.


15. Social Networking (along with gaming environment and virtual worlds) will cause serious security incidents as Malware gets another mode of distribution - "social networks +social engineering"

16. One of the trio among probable Google killers, Mobile search will finally take off by the end of 2008 (other hyped Google killers include Classifieds and Local)

17. A massive datacenter meltdown will happen when one of these energy guzzlers finally gives in to the constant barrage of worm infections.

18. Users of web 2.0 sites will revolt, demanding a better privacy deal and moving on if things don't change.

19. More Blog-led publishing media startups (including Blog Networks) take root and flourish (with hopefully less rewriting and spam)

20. Big Brands get into Web 2.0 in a big way, opting to create their own content.

21. Search Engines use more user data (user preferences, search history, etc) and customized search results become common.

22. Casual games will be the social networking of 2008.

23. "WEB TO WEDDING" will gather force. Did you know that almost 3 million adults have converted online dates into a long-term relationship including marriage?

24. In this age of blogs, twitters, Forums, Facebook, and Youtube Videos, companies become more careful with Online Branding, and hope that they are well equipped to deal with irate citizen journalists (read: customers, competitors) of the world.

25. Crowdsourcing, aka Crowdmining will continue to prosper and will have more innovative uses from some of the best companies in the world.

26. Demographical targeting becomes more difficult as age, gender, marital status are but only a few things that determine consumer behavior in the internet age.

27. While Group Lending got a leg up in 2007 via sites like prosper.com, Group Buying will be hot in 2008.

28. The Internet will slow down considerably as data centers and service providers reel under the increasing demand for multimedia content.


29. Some Asian startups get a hold in the tough U.S. market, despite the inward-looking, arrogant Silicon Valley types.


30. No one (except perhaps the Blackberry and the Google Phone/Android when it is a reality) will challenge the iPhone in 2008.

31. The opening up of the U.S. cell phone setup will create an exciting variety of new applications and cheaper service offerings, more in line with that in Asia, the leader in cellphones.

32. Google gets into the Cable Operators' Set Top Box business.

More Google predictions, all the usual ones are here.


While we are with predictions, indulge me for some predictions from the offline world:

Green IT takes a big foot forward in 2007

China and India will finally begin to emerge as strong domestic markets for solar.

Reverse knowledge migration will gather force: bright and well-educated workers (not exclusively returning prodigal sons will move from developed countries to developing courtiers creating a new class of "cyber-gypsies".

The Rich will get richer and lead more outlandish lifestyles.

The Fed will continue to cut rates and the U.S. economy will begin to pick up steam in the later half of the year.

Labels: 2008, Blog networks, blogging, google, new media, news 2.0, predictions, social networking

posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:39 PM 3 Comments

Revisiting the Ethics for Blog Network owners

Exactly 1 year ago, on December 2006, I wrote a short piece titled Ethics 101 for Blog Network Owners, covering the Spat between Sam Sethi and his erstwhile Boss Michael Arrington. 1 year onwards, Sam Sethi started his own Blog Network BlogNation and now has decided to shut down Blognation’s operations owing to a funding crunch.

I work in a country where the media rarely chooses to review and point mistakes with each other, where there is nothing like the CJR, and where most Big Media are chums and have an unwritten ‘I don’t talk about me, You don’t talk about me’ pact between themselves.

I suppose things are relatively new in the Blogosphere where new media startups are being formed on a daily basis and people are still exploring the boundaries of what’s right and what’s wrong at this bleeding edge of media publishing, and where many owners can cover a lot of Gray Area as the general course of business.

The path to Media Moguldom is almost never pretty and ‘Citizen Kane’ is the timeless story about it.

What makes the New Media so special is the sheer number of potential New Media Mogul wannabes and thus many bloggers and site owners’ fear to write anything bad about others – this being the age of Digg Friends and all…

There are two ways of looking at the Sam Sethi’s story, vis-à-vis Blognation:

1. Taking it as the latest Deadpool story, looking at where Sam went wrong while running Blognation. I suspect that bloggers taking this route including this one here are being supposedly objective just to be in the right books of the powerful Michael Arrington.

2. Put yourself in Sam Sethi’s shoes. First, you disagree with your Boss (Arrington) and run a story anyway, leave the company, start a new company. Your former boss (Arrington, in case you are not keeping up) is so powerful, monied and connected that he has easy access to the latest happenings/troubles at your new startup.

Any new startup has troubles but I think Arrington did not cover any of those stories with the zeal he covered Blognation.

Do I believe Sam Sethi’s accusation that his VC funding was denied because Michael Arrington scared the VC away by choosing to publish confidential documents sent to him by a disgruntled Blognation Employee?

My answer: WWNYTD?

What would the New York Times Do?

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, controversey, ethics, techcrunch, web 2.0

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:44 PM 1 Comments

Web 2.0 is not dead

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, new media, web 2.0, web strategy

posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:10 PM 0 Comments

To succeed, Citizen Journalism needs bold reporting

One of the reasons cited for the dull fare and subsequent insipid activity on hyperlocal sites including the now defunct Backfence may be attributed to the plain and painful reality of stories on display not being bold enough.

Many bloggers have been bold Citizen Journalists, writing fearlessly, doing exposes, doggedly following causes they believe in.

How come citizen reporters on CitiJ sites are not enterprising enough?

Till late 2006, I was the Managing Editor at a blog network in New Delhi. We had many talented writers who were quite passionate about their subjects but I found that they were not as passionate when they wrote, sounding too automated.

There were ownership issues involved.

Being a PAID blogger provided security but it was no incentive to writing with an original voice on blogs, something that makes a blog stand out.

Could a similar thing be happening to Citizen contributors at CitiJ/Hyperlocal sites?
Could better editorial guidance help bring out the best in Citizen Reporters?

Or, are we walking in circles here?
Maybe citizen reporters are self starters.

Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas and Burmese investigative reporter May Thingyan Hein won the 2007 Knight International Journalism Award winners. Working in regimes that excel at shutting people's vices, these bloggers have given ' first-hand reports, videos and photographs have attracted thousands of readers and the attention of mainstream news outlets, which have begun to pick up his hard-hitting stories.'

Wael Abbas has been arrested, interrogated, and beaten, but all that couldn't bring down his enthusiasm for fearless reporting.

It remains to be seen how we channelize this spirit onto Citizen Journalism sites.
Aggregating all the best reporting might be a good beginning.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, citizen journalism

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:03 PM 1 Comments

How far blogging has come #7: Bloggers’ unions

Techcrunch writes about an initiative reported in the Wall Street Journal about a group of left-wing bloggers who are trying to form a union in the hope that they are able to force their New Media paymasters to provide health insurance, adhere to professional standards and most importantly, create a body with aggregated bargaining power.

Some perspectives:
1. Opponents of this move will say that we should leave pay and benefits to the markets to decide, which presumable takes into account demand, supply and the quality of supply. 95% of professional blogosphere is a grey market, with each player using the economics of cheap web space to run millions of basically rewritten posts, supported by Google adsense.

It is obvious what the focus of blog owners/blog network owners is: make adsense money on the side with help of rewriting inputs from bloggers who presumably moonlight at it.

2. I do not know how long will the rewritten blogosphere go. Maybe forever but even that doesn’t warrant government intervention into what is for all purposes a cottage, mom and pop, geek-and-pundit kind of business. You regulate one blog and the owner shuts it down and starts another blog. The same goes for a blog network – damn, this splogging business is so easy.

Nothing more enlightening can be said about blogging/splogging outfits in India and China. I will put it simply- many of my friends depend on these rewriting factories to make a living.

Besides, enforcing regulations across borders is a difficult task.

3. In many ways, all this New Media talk is sheer nonsense. New Media bosses are no different from Old Media bosses. While there will be some honest folks who don’t find sharing the spoils fairly, and I have yet to come across one, most operators are out to make a quick – keep most ad money to themselves, thinking one blogger goes, there are thousands to fill his space, and some are building swanky houses from VC money

4. Many owners tout revenue sharing policies and unions can do little when supply of bloggers is more than the demand. Duncan Reilly says,

...many smaller networks tended to favor a revenue sharing model that rewards popular topics over effort. They do so whilst the network operators keep the majority of profits for themselves.

5. Among the remaining 5% of the professional blogosphere, there are few Conrad Blacks. David Krug of Telegraphik writes,

While some bloggers in networks are making pennies per the hour the network CEO’s and support staff are raking in huge salaries and getting VC Money to help furnish their homes. I don’t like it. It smells funny.

But these are too few and they don’t make a case for wholesale blogger unionizing.

I don’t know how much bloggers at prominent blog networks Weblogsinc, Gawker, Techcrunch make but I sure do hope the bosses pay the bloggers well enough to set a benchmark for other owners, most importantly setting an informal yardstick ratio of salaries and revenue.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, ethics, trends

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:15 PM 1 Comments

Why Techcrunch should buy Business 2.0

“How Far Blogs have come” could have been another title for this post. New Media has indeed come a long way since the time when a HR wise guy asked me earnestly early this year “Huh, what is a blog?”

It will be increasingly difficult to determine where old media ended and new media started. Analyzing the much-hyped CNN Youtube debates, Seth Finkelstein says that “New media is just another way to pull the same old tricks”. He was pointing to the same old problem of gatekeepers, carefully selected questions and presented as Citizen’s Questions, but that is another story.


Vis-à-vis the old media, it is no more about Us vs. Them
Rather, it is about business realities, paying reporters, getting advertising, having focus, producing readable and useful stuff on a continual basis.

It is also about the current trend where blogs have become primary read for many in the coveted 18-35 age group.

Thus, it comes to pass that having becoming tired of reading stories about mainstream media buying new media startups, I propose reasons why a new media startup such as Techcrunch should buy an old media name, Business 2.0.

Business 2.0 seems to be living the magazine version of the glorious ‘hand –to-mouth, one-day-at-a-time” life that people live in poor corners of the world. Ever since, CNNMoney became the single portal for AOl Time Warner’s magazine properties, it was obvious that Business 2.0 would get second class treatment, most of the attention focused on older business magazine, Fortune.

Business 2.0, the once hip brand, became just another brand in the giant’s belly.

Hell, I used to pound the second hand magazine stalls in Daryaganj in New Delhi during earlier web 2.0 bubble for copies of Business 2.0 and RedHerring, another magazine that is biting the dust.

6 Reasons why Techcrunch should buy Business 2.0
1. Techcrunch is the zeitgeist publication of the current era. It is the Industry Standard cum RedHerring cum Upside of this Web 2.0 boom.

2. Techcrunch has a similar niche to that of Business 2.0.

3. Michael Arrington has the networking chops to arrange the money to buy Business 2.0 from Time Inc.

4. Business 2.0 has some great blogs in its portfolio and there are synergies to explore.

5. Josh Quittner of Business 2.0 can bring some sanity Michael Arrington’s rogue publisher’s ways - give Techcrunch some journalistic cred.

6. Business 2.0 will get better attention from Arrington and exposure than it is at CNNMoney. Mike gets a Print play and Business 2.0 gets events like Techcrunch 2.0 – what’s a business magazine without Brand Name smooze fests?

6 Reasons why Blogs are very much mainstream media
As I said earlier, it is no longer about Us vs. Them.

1. Many big blogs, including Engadget and Autoblog are already magazines in the garb of blogs.

2. Yesterday, Environment Blog, Trehugger.com was bought by Discovery Communications for $10 milllion

3. Chitika says that the top 50,000 blogs may have generated $50 million in ad revenues in 2006.


4. Brandweek Magazine has created sorts of ‘media history’ by hiring a blogger to replace a journalist.


5. The Chicago Tribune Newspaper recently relaunched its website, adding multiple blogs in the hot categories – entertainment, travel, sports and others. As Scott Karp points out, essentially the paper has become a blog network.


6. Yesterday, a congressional panel in the United States voted to pass the amended version of Free Flow of Information Act, which proposes to shield journalists and advertising-supported bloggers from having to reveal their confidential sources in many situations.


I heard some time back that the September issue was going to be the last one for Business 2.0 but Time Inc has reportedly told Business 2.0’s staff to start working on October’s issue. Ah, the agony for my fellow word-pushers!

Rather than waiting for the wise guys at Time Inc. to make any haste decisions, I say the guys running the “Save Business 2.0” group on Facebook to start a “Business 2.0 plus Techcrunch” group in earnest.

The only danger:
Business2.0 plus Techcrunch: How best to make it work?

Meanwhile, one thing is clear - While Techcrunch has the web 2.0 scoops, Business 2. has better writers, no offense to Techcrunch writers.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, business 2.0, magazines, techcrunch, trends, web 2.0

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:12 PM 0 Comments

Will someone please write the history of all those who were made by blogging?

As usual, the mainstream media made a hash of understanding new media, and while we are at that, understanding any new piece of technology. The WSJ seems to have been sloppy with fact-check about how old blogging is (hint: ask Dave Winer).

Michael Arrington adds in to say that it is time someone wrote the history of blogging.

My money is on someone writing a comprehensive history about how people used blogging to meet specific ends – making money, creating new media brands, bringing change, uncovering facts, building careers...it is a big list and there are many people to interview.

Start with the tactics (and timing) behind the success of big blogs including Mike’s Techcrunch, Gawker and Weblogsinc network, Treehugger, and a host of other champions.

P.S.: The emphasis should be on tactics.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, controversey, news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:23 PM 0 Comments

Blogs as magazines: the flip side

Blogs such as Engadget, Autoblog, Techcrunch and its 'arch enemy' Valleywag are more like magazines; the matter has been covered on this blog before. The blog owners prefer to call these properties multi-author blogs but that is pure wool.

Goes without saying that it is good thing, blogs becoming part of the mainstream, but ironical, no poetic, when a lame poll put ‘blog’ as a high-flying irritant.

On the flip side, the ‘magablogs’ suffer from the same disease that their print counterparts suffer from: toeing the big-pocket advertisers’ line, hyping up big company products as revolutionary items (something that also says much about the mainstream journalists’ understanding of technology). The ‘magablogs’ are no different from the News 1.0 sites like CNet either.

The term ‘blog’ is just a huge PR ruse.

You can safely presume this disease of ‘Blogspokepersons’ (Valleywag’s invention) will spread out from the comfy environs of Silicon Valley and New Tork to other parts of the world, which is a sure thing since the patients blatantly deny they suffer from any such ailment.

So, dear Virginia, there is no such thing as News 2.0, there is only money.

In the words of Dave Winer,

... it's a f***** up little industry and everyone needs to clean house. There are some pockets of brightness, and we need to help those shine, and we also need to shine the light on the dirty practices that pay your bills, but hurt everyone else.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging. ethics

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:17 PM 0 Comments

A-list Bloggers, ReviewMe, PayperPost…what’s the difference?

A group of A-list bloggers, including Michael Arrington, Om Malik and others stand accused of writing paid for/ad-supported praises of Microsoft latest campaign.

Valleywag writes that John Battelle's Federated Media, who manages advertising support for the named A-list blogs got them to write puff pieces.

Puff pieces are common in the print and TV media, with even the best casually reporting Press Releases as actual news worthy events, often praising below-average products from big companies as life changing offerings.

News blogging was meant to change this muddy scenery with intelligent and honest analysis.
However, we all seem to have slipped somewhere down the line of evolution.

Balancing the demands of honest reporting and making money often puts the blogger/entrepreneur on a slippery ground; many publishing upstarts across all medium know this. That said this ‘A-list slipping’ doesn’t help the beleagured cause of intelligent and useful blogging.

Mike Arrington of Techcrunch has often been accused of traversing a grey line on objectivity.

All this leads one to debate where there is indeed any difference between paid- for reviews done by ReviewMe and PayPerPost and so-called elite bloggers.

This post by Michael Arrington covering a Microsoft product release is symptomatic about the issue on hand.
You can gauge how fawning the writeup really is.

+

A quick response by Om Malik, who is a seasoned and respected journalist, when Valleywag broke this story.


A collection of MediaVidea posts on A-Lists, ethics and related matters:

5 Questions for Bill Gates (re: When Bill met a group of fawning bloggers)

Ethics 101 for blog network Owners

The Attention Economy is an A-lister's Economy

Rules of the Superstar Economy

Downsides of the A-list Phenomenom

Update (24.6.2007)

Jeff Jarvis' analysis of the episode:
While some top bloggers in questions have responded with "I am shocked",or "I am amused" statements, Jeff Jarvis says this episode is a cautioanry tale for bloggers everywhere:

I tried to warn Federated when I adamantly turned down two prior similar campaigns, telling them that this would reflect poorly on the bloggers who do it, possibly on bloggers as a whole, on the network itself, and in the end on the advertisers. But they kept trying to push the boundaries, because that’s what advertisers and thus sales people do.

So ultimately, this is a cautionary tale for all bloggers who take ads: You must set your own boundaries and not let them be pushed. When you do — whatever those boundaries are — that is the very definition of selling out.

In each of these cases, the advertiser’s effort is to get more closely associated with us, our content, our reputations, our brands. They’d like get into our pants mouths. They want us to speak their names. Nicely.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, controversey, ethics

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:53 PM 1 Comments

How far blogs have come: Autoblog giving SUV as a prize

Sometime back I asked whether a multi-staffed, round the clock blog such as Engadget was really a blog, and I meant that successful publishers are only using blogs as easy-to-use publishing tools, in the process getting rubbed by the ‘blogging is cool’ shine.

Now, there is news that Autoblog, another blog owned by AOL/Webslogsinc is giving away a $29000 SUV, the 2007 Dodge Nitro R/T as a prize.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, blogs

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:25 PM 2 Comments

The Ultimate reading list for aspiring blog network moguls

Let us not get into this unending debate about whether Blog Networks are dead.

If you have access to affordable web server and adequate bandwidth, add in dozens of rewriters in China or India, you can still fulfill your dream of being the big time media magnate you promised your mother you would be one day.

So, here it goes:

Part 1: Intro

Introduction to Blog Networks
Written by Darren Rowse of Problogger, from the b5Media Blog network.

Top Blog Networks
List of 80 blog networks.

Top Blogs
List of blogs top in Technorati and Alexa.

Part 2: Funding & Running

Funding Blog Networks
Figures explaining how much it really takes to run a viable Blog network, valuation of Blog networks, among other things.

Blog Networks Need Term Sheets
Calling for rationalizing the relation between the blogger and the network owner.

Paying bloggers
A detailed article by Jeremy Wright, also from the b5Media blog network. Also covers payment method of other blog networks.


Part 3: The criticism

Why I think blog networks suck
Written by SEO expert Aaron Wall where he refutes all the plus points, point by point.

Blog Networks and the Long Tail
Do you create blog network to develop quality content or to earn Google adsense money?

Why Blog Networks Failed
Written by Paul Scrivens of the 9Rules Blog network.

Related coverage on blog networks and failure:

Blog networks - Worth the money?

Why Blog Networks Failed 2

Blog Networks: Time for a Reality Check !


Part 4: What’s next?
FeedBurner testing Blog Networks
FeedBurner is beta testing a new product called “Networks” which are groups of blogs on a single topic.

Big Blog Networks: my vision for Networks of Niches
Richard Macmanus writes about networks of Niches, which are groups of niche bloggers, ''each with their own unique look n' feel but collectively part of a branded network of like minds.

MediaVidea: Mybloglog: a better model for blog networks?

MediaVidea: Blog Networks: an overview

The 9 models of bloggers’ collectives

Labels: Blog networks

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:03 PM 0 Comments

The 9 models of Bloggers’ Collectives

David Cohn at New Assignment wrote about the evolution of what he calls ‘Citizen Networks’, when bloggers come together – propagating a cause, sharing information, group writing and so on.

Often, informal Citizen Networks come into being during times of crisis or tragedy, such as the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech.

Group blogging often bring more credibility to the project at hand. David writes,

‘A (lonely) blog is only as credible as the individual behind it.’

It is not too fantastic to imagine a future of thriving bloggers’ collectives, rivaling the likes of the New York Times in the credibility stakes, as being ‘blogs of record’, so to speak.

Here is a short list of models for bloggers’ collectives:
1. Global Voices: a major source of original reporting by bloggers all over the world.

2. Assignment Zero/New Assignment: Pioneering Pro-Am journalism. Not a collective in the real sense but most contributors may have their own blogs as well.

3. The Blogcritic model: online magazines run by group of bloggers.

4. Desipundit: A group of Indian bloggers who submit interesting links (about India) throughout the day,.

5. Blog networks: Bloggers’ answer to mainstream media, often running into 100 or more blogs. Mostly run by one publisher, quality is an issue.

6. Mybloglog: Tries to create network of like-minded bloggers, often misused for spam purposes.

7. Group writing projects: Popularized by the likes of popular Problogger blog, where bloggers write on a chosen topic, often for traffic or a prize.

8. Katrinalist, Tsuanmi help type sites: updated by anyone (often moderated) with the latest useful information.

A proposal: a Digg version of New Assignment
Pre-populate it with set of issues, letting users add new issues, rate on stories, among other things. A section on ‘news items that need extended/investigative coverage - the more votes it gets, the better its chances of being explored further.

Labels: Blog networks, citizen journalism

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:38 PM 1 Comments

Blog Networks: an overview

This above chart shows rankings and other important detail for main sites of the top blog networks, followed with a chart of top individual blogs and news sites. This does not take into consideration all the blogs in the fold. These are just the flagship/main blogs. Except for Weblogsinc and Gawker, all other main sites may be number one in their respective sites.

Much has happened in the blog network business since the second half of 2005. Many blog networks came into being hoping to emulate the early success of Weblogsinc and Gawker.

However, much water has flown under the bridge since then. Sanity has returned and people are asking whether it is really that easy building long-lasting online media brands.

A brief look at the major trends:
1. Many blog networks since then have either folded down or were sold to bigger blog networks.
2. Blog networks as loose federation of blogs are still doing okay: 9rules.com, Federated Media
3. Blog networks started by Journalists: Om Malik’s Gigaom Network and Rafat Ali’s Paidcontent sites have made it in a big way.
4. The Techcrunch success story: Erstwhile lawyer Michael Arrington started Techcruch in the last quarter of 2005, focusing on Web 2.0 startups. Now the Crunch network has many more online properties in its fold and Techcrunch is ranked 9th in Technorati.
5. Many News organizations have started blog networks, which supplement their main offerings: BBC, Reuters New York Times, Economist and the Guardian have succeeded in creating useful and informative blogs.

What are the issues that play a major role in making or breaking Blog networks?

This brief overview aims to throw some light on the matter:

The importance of Flagship blogs
Flagship blogs/sites build brand and revenue.

Jason Calacanis, who founded the Weblogsinc blog network, often talks about the importance of creating Flagship titles. In the 2 years that the Weblogsinc blog network took to establish itself, it grew to more than 80 blogs at one time. However, AOL, which bought the network in 2005, has started pruning many blogs.

Three blogs, namely Engadget, Joystiq and Autoblog were the flagship blogs that were responsible for the network’s growth in a big way.

Similarly, the Gawker blog network has Gawker, Lifehacker, Gizmodo and Kotaku pulling the whole network.


Multi-author focused blog versus a Blog network.
This is an interesting debate.

There are many blogs and news sites that are huge – bigger than many blog networks.

The Engadget blog, for example has 15-20 contributors at any given time who contribute stories throughout the day. Engadget is organized and run along the lines of a magazine.

In fact, one blog network, Syntagma Media, which had more than 50 blogs, cut down on all redundant blogs and ended up with just 3 sites, which are now being run along the Engadget model – as magazines.

The problems with ‘100- blog’ networks

Not long ago, blog networks proudly shouted about the number of blogs in the network. However, as shown above, numbers have nothing to do with success.

Problem #1: manageability.

How do you supervise the content that goes there?
Story selection, copy editing, checking for copied matter - to manage 100 blogs, you would at least 10 editors, minimum. For cash-strapped startups, that is indeed difficult.

It is not surprising that most huge blog networks do not add any value – in terms of exclusive content. At most, the content is rehashed from RSS readers.

In this scenario, it is difficult a brand around highly atomized, keyword- focused, long tail blogs.

Then, you would need a sales team, or, at least a full-time sales manager.

Since, you don’t have unique content; you need an Evangelizer to promote the blog network/blog on social media sites, forums, etc.

Problem #2: Focus
How do you make a name for yourself?

Like many others in the blogosphere, most blog networks pile on to the usual topics – celebs/scandal/gossip, gadgets, gaming, cars, environment, and health, without standing out in any.

However, some blog networks are doing it with better focus:

B5media specializes in Celeb blogs
Sugar Publishing (owner of Popsugar and other blogs) specializes in female-centric coverage – style, celebrity, etc.


Problem #3: Getting advertising
A ‘100 blog’ network is in deep trouble if it has been unable to build flagship brands.

How do you convince a prospective advertiser about advertising on your ‘atom’ blogs, where traffic is anywhere 100-2000?

It is hard to convince these hard nosed people into sponsoring, say a gadget channel, comprising 20-30 blogs, as it would be hard for the client to gauge the effectiveness of message dissemination.


Problem #4: Paying the bloggers
It takes at least 2 years to put a up a successful blog. A top blog on Technorati is at least 32 months old.

Revenue sharing makes bloggers focus on the topics that bring in traffic – gossip, gadgets, etc. This is good for a while.

For example, B5 media reportedly pays its bloggers using this formula “$100 a month plus $1.50 for every 1,000 pageviews“.

( Via David Krug)

How long will a blogger in the west continue to blog in saturated topic area?
The traffic is bound to plateau after a while.

Not surprisingly, places likes India and China are the best places to run a 100/200 blog network, paying bloggers $100-200 per month

The above chart with the help of two useful tools from Text Link Ads:
Blog Juice calculator and Link Value Calculator

Correction 24.04.2007: John Evans from SyntagaMedia has pointed out that they still have 55 blogs in their networks, arranged across 3 channels.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging

posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:13 PM 4 Comments