Whatever your political persuasion — right, left, or center — the blogosphere is a great place for bloggers to share their political views and make plenty of friends and enemies. We try to follow the conservative, liberal, and everything in between of politics and political blogs/blogging — but only when it intersects with business blogging.
Have a read below of our latest entries on politics and political blogging…
In interesting advertising-supported blog. From their press release:
CoolBusinessIdeas.com, a Singapore-based business intelligence company which publishes a free, monthly e-newsletter that collects new, promising business ideas and innovations globally, has expanded its audience to cater to an international audience. CoolBusinessIdeas.com has also built its new website around an open blog.
More optimism about blog advertising. My concern with this angle, which I’ve expressed to BlogAds CEO Henry Copeland before (who’s quoted in the story) is the current over-reliance among blogs on political advertising at the moment. Sure, pick the low-hanging fruit while you can, I suppose, but let’s not create the impression among advertisers that political ads are all blogs are good for. Otherwise, come November, and that’s it for another four years.
Mediapost: Convention Coverage Could Boost Blog Traffic, Ad Rates, and Awareness
Another example of a blog pursuing an ad revenue model:
HotelChatter is a collaborative web publication for travelers who research and purchase hotel reservations online.
HotelChatter is dedicated to covering everything related to hotels and lodging around the world, we cover hotel deals and reviews, which celebrities are staying where, hotel industry news, tips for booking online, the hotels you should stay away from, the hotels you should book, and more.
I’ve written here before about Nick Denton, the publisher behind Gawker, Wonkette, Fleshbot, Gizmodo and, most recently, Defamer, all blog properties he hires other writers to produce, all of which are doing considerable traffic and have played host to real advertisers like British Airways, Absolut Vodka, Jose Cuervo, Warner Brothers Music, Intuit and others.
Not to name drop, but just for context, Nick and I are buddies from years ago (as in, he had Thanksgiving at my place last year), back from when he was a journalist for the Financial Times (and I for Boston Globe and others), before Nick quit journalism for dot-com entrepreneurship to found Moreover and then rather accidentally made a bunch of money on First Tuesday. Nick was the guy who turned me onto blogs, and in the last couple of years he has dedicated himself to being at the forefront of those pioneering the idea of commercial weblogs.
Nick’s a genuinely nice guy and obviously an uncommonly creative thinker (check out his latest project: ad campaign blogs), but what is perhaps most interesting about him (and anyway it’s the point of this rather embarrassingly butt-kissing post) is what a media darling he is. I’ve never known anyone since I did PR for Marimba’s Kim Polese who was such a publicity magnet. Towit, here are three articles about him published in just the last few weeks in major media, only the tip of the iceberg for this sort of stuff:
I think Ad Age may also have something in the works, but I haven’t seen it yet. Another buddy, Steve Hall, interviewed for the NYT piece, told me that the journalist Nat Ives asked him, “Does it seem like we’re writing about Gawker a bit too much?” Uh…yeah, maybe! FYI, my cell phone is 646 554-0963, if anyone wants to interview a blog expert other than Nick Denton anytime soon…
UPDATE:
ClickZ writes: “Questions for Gawker Media Publisher Nick Denton” (July 6) in which he reveals part of his secret: “Exercise, sometimes. Alcohol, often.”
Along with Nick Denton of Gaker Media and Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc., Tony Perkins is one of the early advocates for using a blog-like format to power a commecial web publishing model with AlwaysOn, which launched nearly two years ago (as of this post).
AlwaysOn has its critics among the old-school blogger community, many of whom question whether AlwaysOn is a blog (or network of blogs) at all. It does seem to have elements of a more “traditonal” online magazine, with many or most posts being longer essays as opposed to short blurbs like those of most blogs, and a broad team of contributing writers. It’s also unclear (to me, anyway) whether there is a traditional editorial hierarch to the site (i.e., posts get approved first by an editor) or whether every writer posts directly to the site in blog tradition. But it’s certainly blog-like enough to merit inclusion in this directory.
Like Red Herring, Perkins’s prior venture, the topic area of AlwaysOn is primarily the intersection of finance and technology.
Nerve, a thinking-person’s erotic site (still, probably not safe for most workplaces), has lauched this weekly column on “sex in news, media + culture,” a blog-ish feature, if not perhaps a “proper blog,” whatever that means — e.g., no permalinks, written once a week in more of a column format than that of a blog, but it has something of a blog feel. Certainly, it is at best a poor-man’s Fleshbot (definitely not safe for work).
Once upon a time, The Industry Standard was the best magazine in the world, covering the Internet economy better than anyone. Then, evil bastards over at IDG pulled the plug on its financing at the first whisper of the economic downturn. Well, now the Internet is back, and, to a lesser extent, so is The Standard. Only this time, it’s just a blog. Mark Glasser, a former reporter for the publication, explains over at the Online Journalism Review, the back-story:
[F]ormer Industry Standard online honcho Matt McAlister — who is vice president and general manager of online operations at IDG’s InfoWorld — has decided to bring the site back to life as a moonlighting project. His plans are modest, with a rotating schedule of guest bloggers over the coming months, but he is clearly optimistic that the Standard still has a place in the media universe.
. . .
[F]ormer Standard contributors Jimmy Guterman, Rafat Ali, James Ledbetter and Mike Butcher have signed up to blog without pay. There will be no editorial oversight before posting, and bloggers will write to the style that suits them best — but mainly with links to news and comments.
Frankly, it’s a former shadow of its former self, but it was so great back when, I’m happy to take whatever reminders of that I can get.
This blog (by an anonymous author, as far as I can see) appears to have a media revenue model (i.e., ad support), as opposed to consulting. It just celebrated its one year birthday last week (Happy Birthday!). Various useful resources for business bloggers, which I will monitor regularly.
Consultant Debbie Weil has been publishing an email newsletter called WordBiz about business copywriting online for more than two years (as of this writing). She makes money by running seminars, consulting and selling reports, as well as ads in her newsletter and on her blog. Her blog features the same kind of breezy writing and straight-forward advice that has made her newsletter so popular among small and large businesses.
Her blog also includes a category on Blogging for Business, which I’ll be sure to scrape for all interesting entries to plug into this directory in the coming weeks.
Rafat Ali, formerly a journalist for Silicon Alley Reporter, runs this blog about trends in online publishing. He also sells advertising for the blog, which is his sole occupation for more than a year. He says he earns more off the blog than he did as a staff reporter, although he also spends a considerable amount of time selling ads himself. He notes that he has also lost advertisers due to his uncompromising coverage of the industry. He’s a pioneer among one-man-brands as far as commercial blogs go.
MarketingVox (formerly named MarketingWonk, Up2Speed and MarketingFix) is a new aggregation blog focused on Internet marketing trends. The site is funded by Andy Bourland, who pays a salary to the site’s full-time editor Tig Tillinghast. The site accepts advertiser and aims to be a commercially viable nano-publishing media property focused on an industry niche.
I am one of this site’s co-founders, and I remain a shareholder, contributor and strategic consultant to the business, although I am no longer involved in its day-to-day operations.
Marketing Vox (which I co-founded, I mention both for bragging rights and full disclosure) produces this email discussion list / blog about online publishing. Blogging, and particularly business-related blogging, is a major theme of the forum. I used to be the moderator of this forum for a few weeks, anyway, but it got to be too much work, so it is now capably moderated by Adam Kalsey.
Curiously, the blog publishing company Gawker Media does not have its own web site, so we link here to the personal blog of its CEO and founder, Nick Denton, who blogs there mostly about his business, anymore. A former staff reporter for the Financial Times and later founder of headline syndication service Moreover and co-founder of the social networking service First Tuesday, Denton was a pioneer in gambling that blogs could become a viable commercial publishing medium. To date, he has contracted freelance writers to write four successful blogs:
UPDATE: Since this original post, Gawker Media has released Defamer, an LA gossip blog.
Denton has announced plans for more blogs on various topics including interior design and travel. He says he draws his inspiration for topics for the companys’ blogs according to popularity of search topics on Google.
I have counseled Gawker Media periodically, primarily about advertising revenue strategies.
In March this year, Denton’s strongest rival among commercial blog publishers, Weblogs, Inc‘s Jason Calacanis, poached the original writer of Gizmodo, Pete Rojas, and launched a knock-off site, Engadget. After a month (as of this posting), a review of both sites on Alexa, suggests that Gizmodo has maintained its audience’s loyalty and Engadget has some catching up to do.
In April, Denton also launched Kinja, a kind of blog portal designed to make blog surfing easier for the masses.
Weblogs, Inc., is a blog publishing venture founded in 2003 by Jason Calacanis, founder of Silicon Alley Reporter, a popular newsletter in the NY technology venture capital market. Calacanis also maintains his own blog on the system.
Presently, Weblog Inc’s blogs are mostly focused on business sectors, including the following titles:
Weblogs, Inc. partners with bloggers to create advertising-supported nano-publishing sites. The business posts a Corporate Philosphy which reads in part:
Weblogs, Inc. is dedicated to creating trade Weblogs (a.k.a. “blogs”) across niche industries in which user participation is an essential component of the resulting product.
. . .
Traditional journalism is, in a word, broken.
The jury is out on whether or not Weblogs, Inc. will turn blogs into a real media business, but we’re eager to find out. Rumor has it that multimillionaire entrepreneur and NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has recently invested in Weblogs, Inc. Cuban also has a blog on Weblogs, Inc.
(UPDATE: Since first writing this, I spoke with Calacanis and asked him about the investment, and he was deliberately vague in answering, in one breath denying it and then suggesting might be true. I honestly don’t know what to think.)
Nick Denton’s Gawker Media is Weblogs, Inc’s closest competition as an out-and-out weblog publishing company.
ClickZ’s editor Rebecca Lieb reports on the recent news that the popular humor and tech blog Boing Boing is too popular for its own good. Boing Boing’s found Mark Frauenfelder, a former editor at Wired, recently appealed to readers for ideas on how Boing Boing can generate revenue, at least enough to cover its ballooning hosting costs, as the blog’s ever-growing popularity is driving the site towards $2,000 a month in bandwidth fees.
Hundreds of readers have shared their ideas. I contributed mine, too, which I posted to my ExecutiveSummary.com site, namely a combination of micropayments, recommended donations and BlogAds.
Lieb notes that Boing Boing has recruited John Battelle to help manage the situation, the former founding editor of Wired and publisher of the late, great Industry Standard magazine. Battelle describes his role with Boing Boing’s four writers, “I’m Reuben, they’re the Partridge Family.”
The ClickZ article also notes that Battelle, if he takes the mantle of publisher, will be following in the lead of Jason Calacanis, Nick Denton and Tony Perkins when it comes to commercial blog entrepreurism.
ClickZ: Boing Boing Plus Battelle Equals Blogs as Big Business?
A new national magazine and website (it’s not clear, actually, whether this is a print publication at all) dedicated injecting social responsibility and personal fulfillment into the business world: “think Fortune meets Oprah with a dash of Vanity Fair,” says co-founder Anita Sharpe on her bio page. Contributors to the site include a couple of A-List Left Coast bloggers (Halley Suitt and David Weinberger), as well as towering management consulting guru Tom Peters, among others.
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Business Blog Consulting is a site devoted to demonstrating how effective weblogs can be for communicating with customers and marketing to new customer prospects. You will find here lots of examples of business and corporate blogs, as well as resources to help you learn more about the topic.
Looking for a company that offers consulting on corporate and business blogging, including design, development and strategy? Consider Netconcepts.
Other stuff? Email us.
Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing
Andy Bourland of Bourland.com
Rich Brooks of Flyte
Paul Chaney of Blogging Systems Group
Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus
Josh Hallett of Hyku
Tris Hussey of Larix Consulting
Lee Odden of TopRank
Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts
Dave Taylor of Intuitive Life for Business
Jim Turner of One by One Media
Dana VanDen Heuvel of BlogSavant
Des Walsh of Thinking Home Business
Debbie Weil of WordBiz and BlogWrite
Jeremy Wright of Ensight
Rick E. Bruner is co-author and principal analyst on this report
Our own contributor Jeremy Wright is the author of this book
"The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right" with a foreword by GM's Bob Lutz..and the rest by Debbie Weil.
Produced by contributor to this site Debbie Weil. Rick E. Bruner is one of the featured experts in this report
This report is written by contributor to this site BL Ochman
I guess this was inevitable
