Please view the page with IE in order for the
playbar to display properly
072.mp3
Bloggers
Creating Networks
All Things Considered·The days of the lone blogger
may be numbered. The nation's most popular Internet writers are starting to
organize themselves into networks to maximize readers and advertising dollars.
The evolution of blogs mirrors the way TV and radio grew.
With millions of blogs on the internet, don’t blame yourself if you can’t
keep up with them all. Advertisers are having the same problem. They know that
there are substantial audiences who get their news, their humor, their gossip
from blogs, but, reaching them has been difficult. Now, a number of companies
are starting blog networks to serve up all those consumers in one place. NPR’s
Robert Smith has the story.
The life of a political blogger can be a lonely one. That the great thing about
blogging on your own is ,it's like being a stand-up comic, it's all your show.
The bad thing about blogging on your own is it’s like being a stand-up comic;
it's all your show. Glenn Reynolds, also known as the Instapundit ,says he has
always tried to link to a wide range of other bloggers, but he is finding he
can’t keep up with them all. So he's becoming part of a network of some of the
heavy hitters and political blogging. Pajamas Media,started by Roger Simon, the
conglomerate has something that few blogs can tout.
3.5 million dollars in venture capital, and a big business dream.
"By aggregating ourselves together, we sort of want to become the New Yorker -
slash - New York times of the blogosphere here ."
And Simon's up- front about the power of a network. It's a model that
advertisers can understand.
"You know, we are going to offer advertisers a largest network of viewers with a
certain demographic so they can say 'Ah, yes'. Volvo says there are people are
all, a lot of these people need to have a nice Volvo, it's safe,etc."
It's an old story. "This is the NBC, the National Broadcasting Company."
The NBC radio network pioneered the form 80 years ago, up until the 1920s radio
was pretty amateur fair. Like the modern internet, there were a slew of ideas
about how to fund the media, including coin-operated radios. But NBC and the
other fledging networks provided the scale to hire the best performers and bring
in the big companies in advertising.
Of course radio was expensive and had limited bandwidth. The network concept is
still controversial in the internet world. The launch of the Pajama's blog
network was widely ridiculed on the web. It initially debuted as open source
media until they found out a public radio program had the same title. They had
quickly changed the name to Pajama's --- a reference to the insult the bloggers
sit around in their pajamas all day. But the most
scathing criticism of the new network asked 'why bother'.
“I think the Internet destroys networks”. Jeff Jarvis writes the blog Buzz
Machine. “You will make your own network, you'll find the blogs and the podcasts
and the blogs that you like, and that's your network.”
Jarvis has been down the conglomerate network road before. He started the
magazine Entertainment Weekly before becoming a blogger. Jarvis thinks that even
without organized networks there is an opportunity for bloggers to become more
savvy about the collective power.
"Advertisers do want to figure you out this world of citizens media. But to buy
on blogs today and podcasts and so on is too complicated. So we have to make it
easier for advertisers. "
The question is what model would become the dominant form of network on the Web.
For instance, the company BlogAds offers many networks to advertisers. You can
choose between putting all your ads on military blogs or one for Republican
women or TV blogs.Henry Copeland is the founder.
"Those are the ones the bloggers have created ,um, I mean, bloggers come to us
and say, 'Hey, I notice a network of New Yorkers'. I’d love to, you know, I’d
love to do something like that for my city ,and we say ok, you know, here is the
tool, go ahead and do it."
These are loose affiliations and the bloggers share the ad revenue. On the other
end of the spectrum are commercial blog networks that run top down. Weblogs Inc.
has 80 different blogs like Engadget and the Autoblog that centrally owned and
controlled and linked to one or another. Shawn Gold is the publisher.
"You know,it's sort of the model of a best sellers or something sells well
because it's selling well so the more popular our blogs get, the more popular
our network gets, you know, everything started to rise together. "
It's a model that at least one mainstream media company thinks it's profitable.
The Weblogs network was recently sold to AOL for reported 25 million dollars.
But even the new networks say they have to be careful. In the rush for ad
dollars no one wants to kill the one thing that made blog popular in the first
place. A passionate voice is saying things that no one else will. Pajama's
optional. Robert Smith, NPR News, New York.
|
