Scrivs from 9rules network has started another network (although he’s not calling it a network) of blogs called Fine Fools Community.
What is it?
Scrivs talked a couple of days ago about wanting to mobilize some of his older idle sites by getting others writing on them. He decided to give his authors 100% of whatever their posts earned from Adsense/YPN. It currently has 8 blogs on it on a variety of topics.
He’s promoting it as a foolish idea – however I don’t believe that it is – at least its not on some levels.
While giving authors 100% of Adsense and Yahoo revenue might sound a stupid move by Scrivs its actually not – don’t worry – he isn’t completely missing out on benefits of the blogs here. What does he get?
- Adsense and YPN ad revenue on front page and category pages. Authors make money from the contextual ads on their own pages – Scrivs presumably takes anything generated elsewhere on the site.
- Other Advertising. The agreement says nothing of sponsorship deals, affiliate programs, shop sales. Scrivs has previously made serious money from shops on his sites and has talked about sponsorship deals on his other sites off an on for a while.
- Page Rank. One of the benefits of involving others in your blog is a more active/fresh site that has the ability to grow in it’s search engine ranking. This will benefit his authors but also himself and the posts that he chooses to write on these blogs.
- Referral Traffic – Scrivs has control over what appears on sidebars and menu etc and will refer to the sites he chooses. One of the stated reasons for starting Fine Fools is to refer traffic back to 9rules (and presumably any other sites he wants to start).
- Departed members Content – the members agreement states that the authors have their publisher code left on any articles that they write for 90 days after they leave the network. Over the long term members will come and go. Thousands of archives can be a lucrative asset.
- Site Sales – Scrivs has previously sold sites for some pretty decent money. There is nothing to stop him doing so in this case. Members are effectively fattening his blogs up for market.
Now I’m not suggesting that Scrivs is evil or sneaky or hiding anything here. I’ve got nothing at all against bloggers making money from blogs or involving others in doing so – all I’m really doing here is exploring why offering authors 100% of income might be a worthwhile (and perhaps smart) thing to do.
What do you think about Scriv’s approach?
