Blogging 1.0 (continued)

« links for 2005-06-30 | Main | links for 2005-07-01 »

Blogging 1.0 (continued)

Possibly my most popular post ever was one called Blogging 1.0.

It got 20 trackbacks and god only knows how many more links.

It was a long missive about the early experiments in "citizen's media" like Geocities and About.com.

I wrote it about five months ago in early February.

So much has happened in the ensuing five months that its time to return to this topic.

First, About.com was purchased by The New York Times Company for $410 million in late February. I blogged about that deal at the time and I think it was a very smart move for the Times to make.

But more importantly, Blogging 2.0 has developed to the point that the $410 million that The New York Times paid for About.com is going to look really cheap in a few years.

Take Weblogs Inc for example. Everyone knows Jason Calacanis and he certainly is a controversial figure. But how can you not be impressed with what he's built on a Blogging 2.0 platform in less than two years.

Just one of his blogs, Engadget.com, does about the same traffic as Slashdot.com does. Here are the Alexa stats:

That's just one of his blogs.

Then there's his blog on cars, Autoblog. How does it compare to the websites of Motortrend and Popular Mechanics? Glad you asked. Here are the Alexa stats on that:

That's just one more of his blogs.

This Blogging 2.0 model is really really powerful. It takes between $25k and $50k to launch one of Weblogs' blogs.

Jason is not alone. Nick Denton is doing the same thing with Gawker Media. In fact, Nick invented this model. Jason paid him the ultimate compliment by copying it pretty much verbatim.

And the Gawker Media properties have similar action.

Here is Gawker vs MetroNew York (the New York Magazine site). It's not even a contest.

And here is Defamer vs Variety.com.

I talked to Nick and Jason this week about the ways they monetize these sites. Although they do "sell" advertising, most of the action is in ad networks and related "automated" ways they monetize their content. There are probably 50 or more advertising services vendors of one sort or another knocking on their doors to get their ad systems onto the Weblogs and Gawker properties.

This puts them in a position of incredible leverage, both with the vendors, and with their businesses. The money just rolls in. The traffic keeps going up. And profits start flowing. Soon they will be big profits.

When is a major media company, other than The New York Times, going to wake up and realize that they need some of this Blogging 2.0 mojo?

If they do it soon, they might be able to pay less than the $410 million that The New York Times paid to get its Blogging 2.0 platform.

If they wait, these businesses are going to sell for a lot more than About.com sold for. Meanwhile, Scott Meyer and his team at About.com are going to reinvent About.com to look like these businesses. It's where the action is in online publishing today.

The scalability and leverage of the Blogging 2.0 publishing model is really mind blowing.

Comments (27) | | TrackBack (14)

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b2c969e200e550367c388834

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Blogging 1.0 (continued):

» Springtime...and Summer of Blog Networks from Blogspotting
Banner few months for emerging digital networks. Fred Wilson has a nice traffic roundup and John Palfrey announces investment fund for citizens media. [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 30, 2005 11:42:15 AM

Tracked on Jun 30, 2005 2:08:38 PM

» Lectura obligatoria: Blogging 1.0 from Merodeando por la enredadera
Cualquiera que esté interesado en los nanomedios, o simplemente en los blogs como negocio, por favor, que lea Blogging 1.0 (continued) y ya que estamos, que lea también el post anterior de febrero: Blogging 1.0. Fred Wilson es un VC... [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 30, 2005 5:11:16 PM

» Blogs 2.0 from TJ's Weblog
Fred Wilson has a laudation on Blog networks and the Blogging 2.0: "But more importantly, Blogging 2.0 has developed to the point that the $410 million that The New York Times paid for About.com is going to look really... [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 30, 2005 6:39:32 PM

» Connectivity and the New Internet from Newsome.Org
As I've been rewriting most of the Rancho DeNada pages, I've been thinking about the internet and its evolving role in the American family. I think we're about to get to the point where the internet moves beyond on online phone book, atlas and catalog ... [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 30, 2005 10:59:37 PM

Tracked on Jul 1, 2005 3:05:23 AM

» "its a great time to be an entrepreneur" from gapingvoid
From Bnoopy:Its a great time to be an entrepreneur. Theres never been a better time to be an entrepreneur because its never been cheaper to be one. Heres one example. Excite.com took $3,000,000 to get from idea to launch. JotSpot... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 1, 2005 8:51:05 AM

Tracked on Jul 1, 2005 8:53:05 AM

» Blogging 2.0 Revisited from Reed Porter at myITforum.com
[Read More]

Tracked on Jul 1, 2005 9:44:04 AM

» Make Money Blogging by Building a Media Empire from Bobnar Blog
Think you can make money blogging? Well, you probably can't, unless you count the smattering of AdSense profits here and there that most of us depend on to pay for our morning latte, if we're lucky. I'm pretty sure this... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 4, 2005 3:45:05 PM

» Is Blogging the Future? from ConversionRater.com - Improving Your Website Conversion Rate
Fred Wilson, a blogging venture capitalist, discusses the "blog network" business model in a recent post. He's very positive about the model, and even suggests that the New York Times got a deal in their $410 million purchase of About.com. While I [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 5, 2005 10:28:47 PM

» Fred Wilson on Blogs from stone
Fred Wilson "A VC", comments on Blogging 1.0 and the absolutley absolute success that Nick and Jason have had in... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 9, 2005 10:00:52 AM

» Fred Wilson on Blogs from stone
Fred Wilson "A VC", comments on Blogging 1.0 and the absolutley absolute success that Nick and Jason have had in... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 9, 2005 10:27:32 AM

» Fred Wilson on Blogs from stone
Fred Wilson "A VC", comments on Blogging 1.0 and the absolutley absolute success that Nick and Jason have had in... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 10, 2005 2:37:00 AM

Posted June 30, 2005 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

And yet who really looks at ads on blogs? Or ads on web sites in general? Blog ads that worked happened in the last presidential election cycle where political bloggers wrote about the very issues and people who were advertised on their sites. It worked because there was a seamless integration, anti-bush t-shirts on anti-bush comments and anti-kerry t-shirts on anti-kerry comments. In fact many candidates and organizations were able to raise money by being on these sites.

But that tight match between content and promotion is hard to do. Single issue blogs do not generate the interests that the broader issue ones do. And if much of the traffic is of posters, then what are we to make of that traffic? Does the poster bother with the rest of the site? I think not.

All the traffic in the world will not make up for that fact. The media play here is really to get blogs to lead to other media purchases, not succumbing to the classic advertising model. That is why the NYT move made sense.

Posted by: Jackie Lightfield | Jun 30, 2005 10:03:24 AM

The blog empire model is decent right now. I think Nick D. and Jason C. have done incredible jobs. If About.com is the prototype blog empire (they use Movable Type to publish much of their content), Jason and Nick could be on their way to huge financial success. That said, their model faces two weaknesses.

** Weakness #1 -- Publishers don't add enormous significant value **

Over time, bloggers will begin to ask themselves, do they really need their publisher? Gawker and WIN will claim that they bring value via their publishing brands, deployment of technology , design, and ad sales.

Of the four, the only factor that really holds true is the power of the Gawker and WIN brands.

Any savvy writer can hire a freelancer or two and set himself up with a blog powered by Movable Type and a solid design. The max cost to get this set up is $5k and that's expensive.

Most of the ad sales at Gawker and WIN come from ad networks (at least for now). To an extent, Gawker and WIN are sapping the writers of their margins. Especially if payout begins after hosting costs are taken out from revenue.

**Weakness #2 - Low pageview to unique visitor ratio.**
If, on average a decent publisher generates 10 pageviews per reader, blogs only garner 1-2. So even if traffic levels are comparable, it's hard for a blog to grow substantively without a publishing architecture that provides for permanent articles (beyond the simple blog format).

Posted by: Noah Robinson | Jun 30, 2005 10:33:28 AM

Wow... thanks for the kind words Fred. We're psyched about where we are and we feel like we're just getting started!

Noah: Actually, the majority of our revenue comes from direct sales. Also, we provide some others things that many bloggers are looking for: traffic, a community of like-minded people to blog with, affiliate with a leading brand that builds their reputation, and guaranteed pay.

The truth is, the people who blog with us do it because they are passionate first and because of the pay second. There are some folks out there who are in it for the money first and blogging second, and if they have the year or two and $25-50k it takes to make a great blog that's great--it gives us someone to link to! We can have a successful blog if we don't have other bloggers to link to and have discussions with. It's not a zero sum game AT ALL.

I'm of the theory that there will be 20-50 successful (on a business level) blogs in every vertical, and by successful I mean that they will be worth reading and be able to pay the bloggers who work on them. There will be millions of others that never aspire to make money. The business blog space is going to be highly fragmented like the magazine and cable business used to be for a very, very long time--perhaps forever, because in the world of blog many voices is valued over mega brands.

Posted by: Jason | Jun 30, 2005 2:34:02 PM

What is not being mentioned is the fact that blogs, at current, are not responsible for a significant amount of content. At some point, the comparisons you make in page views who are at the losing end are going to say, hey we can hire an in-house blogger for 30k a year and take back a lot of that traffic if we do it right... and we have the content we can leverage in ways that pure blogging networks can't.

Of course, this doesn't seem to apply as much to WeblogsInc blogs, which seem to be creating more and more of their own content every day. But the most successful Gawker blogs are 99% other people's content + commentary, which is great-- but not exactly difficult to copy or improve upon with better writers.

Posted by: Ted | Jun 30, 2005 5:14:53 PM

>> Of course, this doesn't seem to
>> apply as much to WeblogsInc blogs,
>> which seem to be creating more and
>> more of their own content every day.

Ted,

You nailed it. While we do short posts to create comprehensive coverage we are spending more and more time and resources on "features."

I've got a magazine background, so I'm always thinking about what can you build on top of the short updates blogs are so great at providing.

- At Autoblog we do five day reviews of cars.
- At Engadget we do CEO interviews.
- At TVSquad we do daily recaps of shows like the Daily Show.
- At Cinematical we do team coverage/reviews of movies and interviews with directors.
- We're doing podcasts at eight of our blogs (about 10%, I'm sure that will grow to 50%).

"Link blogs" as we call them can only take you so far. You need to invest in bloggers doing long form work as well.

best j

Posted by: Jason | Jun 30, 2005 7:25:31 PM

Traffic Traffic and More Traffic. Am I the only person who read Monster.com's comment about traffic?

Monster.com explained that it redirected its advertising dollars because, while it was getting high traffic from the platforms it was advertising on, that traffic wasn't buying anything.

Messageboards almost always have high traffic because you get people who "camp out" posting and reading other people's posts. But, this kind of traffic is not "quality traffic", these people are generally NOT buying anything. Blogs are creating artificial traffic numbers using the "trick" of posting little blog entries throughout the day and getting the same losers who didn't buy anything at 9:00am to keep checking back to see the new blog entires. This is not rocket science. Gawker.com could probably triple its traffic by allowing comments.

Seriously, I don't think you make the case for your argument and your post reads more like a "subliminal suggestion" than a report. Specifically, you don't mention vault.com. Vault.com has more original content than Gawker or Weblogsinc will ever have. No one has reported on the fact that Vault.com just "openened up its vault" and I am seeing archived vault.com content now in google search results.

I would have had a lot more respect for your conclusions had you actually mentioned vault.com, given that vault.com seems to already be what you seem to be hoping Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc could possibly become.

Posted by: Marion Paige | Jun 30, 2005 10:19:24 PM

Interesting post. I agree with the general idea here, but I would like to clarify one thing.

The Alexa stats for Slashdot are close to meaningless. As you may know, Alexa uses a search toolbar to gather its site traffic statistics. Slashdot's core audience is very resistent to this sort of thing.

Between that and the number of non-Alexa-compatible browsers used by Slashdotters, an overwhelmingly disproportionate percentage of the Slashdot readership is not on Alexa's radar. (Compared to most other sites, even Engadget.)

So while Engadget is a great blog and gets mad traffic, Alexa stats are not a meaningful basis on which to compare it to Slashdot.

Posted by: Kevin Frost | Jul 1, 2005 4:25:19 PM

videos

Posted by: qwer | Oct 10, 2005 6:21:28 AM

full length movies

videos

download movies

Posted by: qwer | Oct 10, 2005 6:22:21 AM

http://movies.isthebe.st/index.html

Posted by: qwer | Oct 17, 2005 3:25:00 AM

http://www.full-length-movies.biz/index.html
http://amateur.full-length-movies.biz/index.html
http://anal.full-length-movies.biz/index.html
http://anime.full-length-movies.biz/index.html

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:02:17 AM

http://www.full-length-movies.biz/index.html
http://amateur.full-length-movies.biz/index.html
http://anal.full-length-movies.biz/index.html
http://anime.full-length-movies.biz/index.html

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:02:48 AM

full length movies

amateur

anal

anime

asian

bbw

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:03:26 AM

big boobs

big cocks

black

blondes

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:04:14 AM

bondage

brunette

busty

cartoon

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:06:02 AM

centerfold

cumshot

doggystyle

double penetration

ebony

ethnic

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:06:52 AM

facial

fat

feet

fem dom

fetish

gangbang

gay asian

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:07:39 AM

gay bear

gay black

gay chat

gay college

gay ebony

gay free sex

gay hairy

gay latino

gay twink

gay young

group

hairy girls

handjob

hardcore

hentai

indian

interracial

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:22:15 AM

latino

legs

lesbian

live-sex

manga

masturbation

mature

milf

orgy

fpantyhose

petite

porn movies

pornstars

porn videos

reality

redhead

sex videos

shemale

smoking

solo girl

solo guy

teen

tranny

transsexual

upskirt panties

voyeur

Posted by: qwer | Oct 19, 2005 11:23:10 AM

Posted by: qwer | Oct 26, 2005 3:56:14 AM

Program on the emergence of civilization.

"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent. "
Favor.
And disfavor.

They point out Africans’ failed attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.

The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.

AIDS in Africa.

Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

1. MUCK - perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as "god"
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management
3. Evil/disfavored aliens - runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere

Terrestrial management:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans - they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia - the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.

Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1985 James Bond View to a Kill 1989 San Francisco Loma Prieta earthquake.

Many Muslims are being used like the Germans and Japanese of WWII::being used to hurt others and envoke condemnation upon their people.

They can affect the weather and Hurricane Katrina was accomplished for many reasons and involves many interests, as anything this historical is::
1. Take heat off Sheenhan/Iraq, protecting profitable war machine/private war contracts
2. Gentrification. New Orleans median home price of $84k is among the lowest in major American cities, certainly among desirable cities.

Our society gives clues to the system in place. We all have heard the saying "He has more money than god." There is also an episode of the Simpsons where god meets Homer and says "I'm too old and rich for this."

This is the system on earth because this is the system everywhere.
god is evil because of money.

I don't want to suggest the upper eschelons are evil and good is the fringe.

But they have made it abundantly clear that doing business with evil (disfavored) won't help people. They say only good would have the ear, since evil is struggling for survival, and therefore only the favored could help me.

The clues are there which companies are favored and which are disfavored, market domination being one clue, but they conceal it very hard because it is so crucial.

I offer an example of historical proportions:::

People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union".

Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority.
Unions serve to empower.
Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems.
Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil (disfavored).
I believe the coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to just this.
The middle class is being deceived. They are being misled into the unfavored, and subsequently will have no hope.

Amercia is a country of castoffs, rejects. Italy sent its criminals. Malcontents.
Between the thrones, the klans and kindred, they "decided" who they didn't want and acted, creating discontent and/or starvation.
The u.s. is full of disfavored rejects. It is the reason for the myriad of problems not found in European countries. As far as the Rockafellers and other industrialists of the 19th century go, I suspect these aren't their real names. I suspect they were chosen to go and head this new empire.

Jesus Christ is a religious figure of evil. These seperatist churches formed so they could still capture the rest of the white people, keeping them worshipping the wrong god.
And now they do it to people of color, Latinos and Asians, after centuries of preying upon them.

Since Buddism doesn't recongnize a god, the calls are never heard, and Chinese representation is instead selected by the thrones.
It was set up this way. Perhaps dyanstic thrones had a say, but maybe not.
Budda was the Asian's Jesus Christ::: bad for the people. "They came up at the same time for a reason."

Simpson's foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. "Last one you ever suspect."
"You'll see lots of nuns where you're going:::hell!!!" St. Wigham, Helloween VI, missionary work, destroying cultures.
Over and over, the Simpsons was a source of education and enlightenment, a target of ridicule by the system which wishes to conceal its secrets.

Jews maim the body formed in the image of "god", and inflicted circumsision upon all other white people, as well as the evil that is Jesus Christ. I believe Islam is the one true religion, and those misled christians and cooperating Jews who attack "god's" most favored people will pay for it dearly one day.

Posted by: 1The Damned | Nov 3, 2005 4:39:03 PM

http://pointal.lookin.at/pantyhose-sex/i0dc/fetish-legs.html sightstickysubmit

Posted by: pleases | Nov 16, 2005 12:25:35 AM

Posted by: Mauris | Nov 17, 2005 1:34:54 AM

porn videos
Amateur

Anal

Asian

Bear

Black

Blowjob

Blonde

Boy

Chat

Cock

College

Cum

Ebony

First time

Fuck

Hardcore

Hairy

Latin

Latino

Muscle

Naked

Nude

Sex FREE

Shemale

Teens

Teen sex

Twinks

Tranny

Videos

Young

amateur

anal

asian

bbw

big cock

big tits

black pussy

blondes

blowjob

bondage

brunette

busty

cartoon

centerfold

cumshot

ebony

facial

fat girl

gay sex

group

handjob

hardcore

hentai

indian

interracial

latin sex

lesbian

live show

mature

oral

orgy

hairy

petite

porn movie

porn star

porn video

pregnant

redhead

sex videos

teen sex

transsexual

voyeur

Posted by: bob | Nov 17, 2005 7:37:10 AM

Posted by: ad aware | Nov 17, 2005 9:21:50 AM

A VC

Musings of a VC in NYC