I've got to agree with Scott Karp's take on Blogburst, which aims to take blogs and have them syndicated/republished on the Web sites of newspapers. There are a few flaws in this strategy. As Scott points out "why do publishers need BlogBurst as a middleman?" Another question is why would a blogger sign up unless they really, really want exposure and/or traffic. Blogburst takes a blogger's content and provides the following: "visibility and exposure", "new readers", "authority and credibility" and "the opportunity to take your blog to the next level" (whatever that means). The downside is there's no economic incentive for the blogger and little guarantee readers are going to visit your blog unless they click on your byline. For anyone really trying to build a brand, they should want and encourage people to visit their blogs. I also agree with Karp's suggestion that Michael Arrington's credibility comes into play every time he gushes over a company in which he has a relationship - even if it disclosed. Maybe it's just a bad case of being on the outside looking in but I'm getting tired of the Arrington Factor where he has become the voice for anything Web 2.0 that is deemed to be worthy of attention.
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Mark Evansthe blog - examines the world of telecom and technology from a distinctly Canadian perspective.the person - lives in Toronto, CA with his wife and three children, and works as director of community with PlanetEye Inc. 
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Blogburst: An Odd Reponse by Old Media
by
Mark Evans
on Sun 19 Feb 2006 01:08 PM EST | Permanent Link
Comments
Re: Blogburst: An Odd Reponse by Old Media
by
Tris Hussey
on Sun 19 Feb 2006 04:40 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
I agree Mark. The problem that I see as well is that the only compensation offered is traffic and links. Traffic and links don't buy milk at the store.
Content has value. People's articles and ideas have value. These newspaper sites are going use this great new content to drive more traffic, which should bring them more revenue ... but what about the bloggers? That being said ... I think a post-centric model of advertising might be a good match here. Re: Re: Blogburst: An Odd Reponse by Old Media
by
Mark Evans
on Sun 19 Feb 2006 05:05 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
tris,
i've been approached several times about having my content appear on how web sites or news services. the problem is they get the content but it doesn't drive any more traffic to my branded-blog. a good example is feedburner's feedblitz product. it looked like a good idea to make subscriptions easier until i realized the subscriber received the full post - complete with graphics - which meant there was no reason to visit my site. as a result, i quickly deactivated feeblitz. Re: Re: Re: Blogburst: An Odd Reponse by Old Media
by
Tris Hussey
on Sun 19 Feb 2006 05:16 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
Mark, Exactly! And that's why we came up with a way to insert ads via Qumana and later AdGenta. When I post (and we use FeedBlitz too) my ad is carried as part of the text, so still get the eyeball and potential click.
IMHO the whole full vs partial feed debate has been driven not by user preferences as much as economics. Re: Re: Re: Blogburst: An Odd Reponse by Old Media
by
Anonymous
on Mon 20 Feb 2006 05:59 PM EST | Permanent Link
FeedBlitz makes sense in a partial feed world because you are reminding people who want email notification that something new is available, they get a taste in the email and then the full article after they click-thru online. I've been doing this for years with my Jake Ludington's MediaBlab newsletter/blog which went from email publishing only to email and RSS. The email newsletter provides enough text to make a decision about clicking thru, you get the full article on the Web and I get paid via advertising both online and in the newsletter. Now, I'm using AWeber (which isn't free), but the premise is the same if properly implemented.
BlogBurst is different, in the sense that they want full text feeds for the newspapers and you aren't guaranteed anything in return, but I'm giving it a shot anyway because I'm fairly certain getting content on higher traffic sites will result in more traffic, which ultimately translates to more revenue. The real question will be whether the search engines can accurately parse where the source is. If it doesn't work out, I'm certainly not obligated to stick with it. Jake Ludington |
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