I’ve just finalised a revised list of blog networks and posted it here at The Blog Herald for those interested, but I thought I might share a few more thoughts on the subject.
Blog networks are growing. I originally wrote the first version of the list on the fly because I’d noticed that there seemed to be more networks emerging lately, and thought it would be an interesting thing to do. I didn’t realise however just quite how many there were, and the amazing diversity available on them.
People talk about the power of blogging but its only (if you’re like me) start seeing numbers that the influence of blogs, even in this case corporate and network blogs, can and are having.
Let me guess a figure: combined traffic for all the blog networks on the list..at least 50-100 million page views per day, if not higher again. If every blog network on this list combined you’d deliver a media company that would potentially have enough long tail influence to be a major, multi-billion dollar company spanning 4 continents, employing hundreds (if not thousands) of people and reaching directly and indirectly to at least half of all internet users on the planet every single day. Hype? look at some of the figures in Alexa for the blogs on WeblogsInc, Gawker and the Ist network for example. Take a look at some of the other networks; Shiny is making big inroads in the UK, some of the non-English speaking blog networks are trailblazers in Europe and making big inroads. And here’s my next prediction: Jason Calacanis is potentially the next Rupert Murdoch of the blogosphere (sure without the famous war correspondent father and without being born in Adelaide but you get the drift…). The blog networks keep getting bigger and bigger and Calacanis is at the top of the pack. I can feel a flame war coming on with this, but none the less as a reader I challenge you with these facts, take out the hype in the blogosphere and look at the figures, blog networks continue to grow, continue to become more and more influential, and as a consequence blogging will change the world as we know it.
But with running in a gang comes having to toe the party line – I put up Sergio’s Overcaffeinated blog http://www.overcaffeinated.net as an example and the 9 rules network.
Sergio’s fan base really dug his filthy mexican love stories and swearing and cheech and chong type drinking binge content. He won awards and i used to read his work avidly for the occasional laugh. Now are the last few months of Sergio’s lame and tame entries the work of tamed true love (perhaps) or because if you run in a gang your behaviour reflects on the group as a whole. So if he wasn’t asked to tame up for the gang then I apologise as it’s a bad example but you might be able to see my point anyway.
From experience I’ve found gangs often aren’t worth joining simply because of the expectations and rules set on you by the gang mass. I think for this reason, regardless of the current hype on blog networks, I will always be just a plain old independant blogger. They may be successful but at what price?
This is only my personal 2 cents though so nobody needs burn my house down and roast my doggies on a spit. To each their own.
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Why would we want Sergio to change at all? He has been going through some things lately which I am sure effect his writing, but in no way do we dictate what goes on the blogs of our members. In fact we encourage him to get nasty again. He is much funnier that way.
If we ever asked him to change (we don’t do to any of our members otherwise there would be no point in asking them to join) I am sure he would tell us to f*ck off and rightfully so.
Scrivs is right. All the recent mushiness, lack of cynicism and otherwise deviation from the norm of my posts was related to, quite simply, being in love. And then having trouble in love. And then not having love at all.
This may be a good thing for the site…
Anyway, not 9 rules related at all. If anything, I haven’t been as involved in the network as I’d like to or intended to at the beginning. I haven’t been getting shit done and I haven’t been working towards my larger goals as much as I meant to. This is all going to change now that I’m bitter and angy again, I guess. Sort of.
And just to be a bit on-topic: Duncan, I average nearly 16,000 pageviews a day. I’m not sure what the 9rules traffic may be all combined, though. Still waiting for the naked girls, hot sports cars and real life influence, though. Bleh.
Nice list of networks. I hope to add to that once I get a network of great bloggers together. :) No competition for you Scrivs, but us Canadians deserve to be heard and I dont think that dailypixel network is going to do it. :)
Thanks for the kudos… we’ve got a long way to go.
This month Judith will have 100 bloggers on the payroll… that to me is stunning since just a couple of months ago we had like 50. However, there is going to be room for three large players and 50 niche players in each vertical–at least.
The nature of this medium is a lot of winners of various sizes. Look at Engadget or HackAday or Cinematical.. these blogs all get great traffic and are leaders in their verticals, but they only exist and thrive because of niche blogs that they link to every day. Take away all the niche blogs about ipaqs, phones, tablet PCs, robots, hacking, etc. and what would Engadget link to every day? Same with Cinematical… we link to a ton of bloggers and they get traffic to make a living, we make a showcasing their content (as well as ours) and everyone wins.
We are trained from an early age to believe that when one person wins someone else must lose… in this case we’re looking at the opposite: when one person wins a lot of people can win. For example, if Gawker gets a mention in the New York Times and doubles its traffic that day all the blogs that it links to that day get 2x as much traffic.
Now, look at the New York Times homepage… they don’t linke to anyone but themselves and their advertisers. That’s a zero sum game right there… either you get more NYT or you get an advertisement–and their ain’t no middle ground.
Dave Weinberg pointed this out at the Reboot conference: the NYT had four links off of the NYT home page–all advertisers!!!
That is what we’re up against here really… old media companies that don’t want to share audience. What I love about this new model is that the more you share the more you grow…. the more you give the more you get. That trend is not going to end either… it’s inherent in the medium.
Jason Weblogsinc removes comments from bloggers raising questions about your network. Why is that?
re: David
You’re right in that Canadians deserve to be heard. There are some amazing, uber-talented voices populating the blogosphere in Canada. However, I sincerely hope you are incorrect in assuming Dailypixel won’t be able to ‘do it’ in terms of helping Canadian bloggers achieve a wider audience. We’re barely 8 weeks, and two blogs into the creation of our Canadian blog network. What you are seeing now is just the tip of a Canadian iceberg in terms of where we’re going with our network concept. I welcome all feedback, and if you would like to chat more about our plans feel free to email me directly anytime: james at dailypixel dot com. Awareness of blogs and blogging in Canada has been a slow process but we are getting there. It’s my hope that Dailypixel can be an impetus that pushes blog media toward staking its claim as a signficant component in Canada’s media landscape. Building and cultivating readership for one blog takes a solid commitment, building a blog network pretty much requires you to check your sanity at the door. I’m not saying that to impress you or detract you from anything, I’m saying it to impress upon you that with all worthwhile endeavours there is a growth process. Each day that passes yields new lessons learned and brings us one day closer to achiveiving the goal of the creation of an inclusive, robust Canadian blog network that you and all Canadians can be proud of.