Lovelorn Autoblog

Jason must be feeling unloved today. He pinged both me and Jeff asking why we hadn't blogged his new AutoBlog.

So here's my take.

1 - It's the best looking blog on Weblogs Inc. so far. I am not a big fan of the look and feel of Weblogs Inc's blogs. They feel very bland to me. If its a commercial publishing venture, then give me some warmth and feel. Autoblog does that the best so far. But I could use more.

2 - I don't give a shit about cars. They don't interest me in the least. I'm a New Yorker. Give me subway blog and I'll add it to me feed reader. I own two cars but could care less about them as long as they don't break down.

3 - Where is the advertising? Car enthusiasts and in-market car buyers are two of the most attractive segments in online advertising. Let's see some ads!

4 - I am not sure I get where Jason is going with Weblogs Inc. I thought it was a trade publishing model with a focus on tech and startups. But now he's got Engadget, AutoBlog, and BlogMaverick which are more consumer focused. It may be that he's putting up a lot and seeing what sticks. That's not a bad model early in a market. But I think he's eventually got to pick a target market and focus on it.

Bottom line - Autoblog is a nice blog. I bet it will build a good audience. I am rooting for Jason and everyone else who is trying to turn blogs into a business. Jason is smart, scrappy, hungry, bold, brave, and agressive. He'll figure it out.

Comments

[Marcus]

What happened? You were well on your way to beeatch-slapping this Calacanis "business," when you pulled back and buddied up. Wimp.

[Brian]

"Jason is smart, scrappy, hungry, bold, brave, and agressive."

Well, maybe 5 years ago.

It's remarkable the number of negative Calacanis stories I've run across the past few years, most from the era shortly pre- and post-crash.

At this point, giving his ventures more attention is just throwing good money after bad.

[Jason Calacanis]

Thanks for the advice... ironic how I used to be the one covering you and giving you free advice. Blogs have changed things. :-)

Nobody knows what is going to work in this space. These days I’m humble and I prefer to build a great team and put my head down and work. Well, I do like to stir up some trouble in the press once and a while too… :-)

You nailed part of it in your analysis: we are throwing things against the wall to see what stick. I can tell you that Engadget.com and WIN have both stuck—big time. The traffic has been stunning and the advertising is starting to come in. We just sold our first “run of network” ads… this means all our blogs and bloggers are going to make money. Not a ton, but something.

Autoblog.com will have ads, but my plan is to work on content, brand and audience for the first three months of the brand. Better to come to advertisers with 1m page views then 100k.

Also, the network effect is working. Just like Denton can’t dump tens of thousands of people to a new blog like Defamer.com, we can dump tens of thousands of people to Autoblog.com. It’s a good thing to have built in marketing… the future of blogging is going to have a distribution component; most people just don’t see that yet.

My philosophy of business—since this blog is really about the Zen of entrepreneurship—has changed over the years. My original style was to mix it up… to crush anyone in our way. It worked; we made 10-4x the money of our Silicon Alley competitors.

These days I’m just not as aggressive and confrontational.

My main goal is to discover a couple of new questions every day and try to answer some of them as best I can. I find myself debating both sides of a question as opposed to when I used to pick one side and fight for it to the death.

We are so early on in blogging that success right now is a) being in the game, b) trying things and c) figuring out what the lever points are in the business. I’ve learned like five or six key drivers over the past three months alone.

Nick Denton is doing a great job of this as well, and we compare notes every couple of days on IM and in person every month over dinner. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw the two of us working on some projects together in the future.

We will figure out how to make a business out of this while maintaining the integrity of the blog format—that is our #1 goal. Anyone can pimp out blogs… that doesn’t take much work. However, to maintain what is special about them is the key. It would be a hollow victory for us to make this into a business and loose the unfiltered, raw, and honest nature of blogs.

Now, http://www.Autoblog.com doesn't appeal to New Yorkers... I get that. However, it is the most sold out category in online advertising over the five years with maybe the exception of dating.

Autoblog was Feedster’s feed of the day and Yahoo just made it the pick of the day. Thousands of people a day are already coming to the site after only a week. The truth is up till now blogging has been an elite sport dominated by a handful of techies in New York and San Fran. That is all going to change in the next 24 months.

The real revolution in blogging is happening in the "fly over states," as the elite bi-costal media stars like to call middle-America. I’m not focused on New York and San Fran… I’m focused on Ohio.

[pussycat]

"These days I’m just not as aggressive and confrontational," Calcanis writes.

Yeah, right. Read the comments on this.
Calacanis Jumps the Shark?

[Adam Smith]

hey o This is a wonderful opinion. The things mentioned are unanimous and needs to be appreciated by everyone.
Care for Cars