Written on October 7th, 2005 at 02:10 pm by Darren Rowse
VeriSign buys Weblogs.com
Well there is plenty of money flowing around the blogging community today with VeriSign buying Weblogs.com for a rumored $2-$5 million. Weblogs.com is (or was) Dave Winer’s baby.
VeriSign explain their intentions for Weblogs.com:
“First, we want to see weblogs.com remain what it is, and maintain how it works for the long term. There’s enormous value for the ecosystem in realizing Dave’s original vision for his ping server: a free, standards-based service that is easy to use, and effective in signaling to the world at large that you’ve submitted new content into the system. Here are some attributes that we intend to preserve and extend for weblogs.com:
1. Free
2. Open
3. Solid
4. Informative”
Found via Blog Herald, Scobleizer and Siliconbeat
Written on October 7th, 2005 at 10:10 am by Darren Rowse
Instablogs Launches
After a few server problems the newest blog network to launch - Instablogs - has gone live. They’ve launched with 46 blogs (unless I can’t count) on a large array of topics. They are billing themselves as ‘A News Organization based on Blogging’. It’s early days yet for them so I’m not interested in taking them apart too negatively - but in responding to their call for suggestions and feedback here are some of my initial impressions:
- Content - Just over 50% of their first round of blogs have no posts - I’m surprised by this, I’ve never seen a blog network launch empty blogs before. A further 4 of their blogs have only one welcome post on them. The writing on the blogs I see with posts seems to largely be link driven (ie linking to an article with comments on that article). I’m yet to reach each Active blog in full but so far I haven’t seen too much original content. I’m not knocking this style of blogging - just interested in which approach they are taking.
- Topics - They have chosen a nice wide range of niches to explore. Quite a few are the ‘typical’ blog network topics (why change a winner formulae?) but some are exploring new-ish ground which will be interesting to follow.
- Design - I like their clean design. A lesson I learned from Jason Calacanis though is that he found that WIN’s blogs do better when each blog has its own look/feel/brand. So far they are all looking pretty much the same with a few different colors in the headers. Of course this is challenging when you have 50 or so blogs - but something I suspect they’ll make some changes on this.
- Bloggers - One thing I’m interested in is the anonymity of authors so far. I wonder whether this will change.
- International - I’m excited by some of their internationally flavored blog topics.
- Ads - To this point I’m not seeing any. I’m sure this will come in time.
It’s always interesting to see how different bloggers and networks choose to go about setting up. I’ll be watching Instablogs with real interest. They’ve obviously got some big ideas which I wish them all the best in.
Written on October 7th, 2005 at 04:10 am by Darren Rowse
Entrepreneurial Bloggers as Re-Arrangers
Today’s quote of the day (ok - so its quote of the week, month or year as I don’t do quotes of the day) comes from David V. Lorenzo:
‘Most successful entrepreneurs are great re-arrangers. They take something that has been useful somewhere else and rig it so that it is groundbreaking and disruptive to a completely different industry.’ found via Dane
This is what I see a lot of very talented bloggers doing at the moment. They are taking previously done ideas and putting a new spin on them.
Another trend that I’m seeing among bloggers that relates to this is the trend of bringing two different niches together into one blog.
- Shoeblogs does this by blogging about ‘Shoes and Celebrities’.
- Cooking Gadgets does this by blogging about ‘Gadgets and Cooking’.
These are just two of numerous that I’ve seen of late that do this. In fact I’ve stumbled upon about 5 others in the past 48 hours that are attempting to do it also.
Written on October 7th, 2005 at 01:10 am by Darren Rowse
The Alane By Day Project
alane by day is one of the more interesting blog projects that I’ve seen for a while. It’s difficult to describe - but really its an online space where business, blogging, entrepreneurial spirit and a whole heap of experts come together to help alane start up her set up her own architecture business in 82 days. Still confused? Here’s how they describe it:
‘Alane By Day is the real-time narrative of the step-by-step creation of Alane’s architecture practice in just 82 days. We’re using the blog format so everyone can see how it’s done. If you’re starting a business, this blog will help you; if you’ve already started a business, you can help this blog.’
Alane is the central character (not a fictional one) in the blog as it’s her business that they are starting up - but there are also a cast of 15 business experts and a 5 person design panel working with her. I’m finding it all a little hard to follow but something about the idea just fascinates me and I’m finding myself heading over to the blog numerous times per day to see how the 82 day project is going. They are already up to day 9 so it’s over 10%. It’s a fascinating and fresh project which might be worth following over the next couple of months.
Written on October 6th, 2005 at 11:10 pm by Darren Rowse
Manolo hires Blogger
Six Figure blogger - Manolo the Shoeblogger has just hired his first blogger for his brides blog. Congratulations Manolo and congratulations to the new blogger - never teh bride.
Written on October 6th, 2005 at 09:10 pm by Darren Rowse
Weblogs Inc Sale to AOL Confirmed - Here’s the Inside Word
I’ve just been forwarded an email which was sent from Weblogs Inc Co-Founder Brian Alvey to Weblogs Inc’s bloggers. It was sent to me by WIN blogger who wants to remain nameless. I won’t publish it in full here as its a private email - but here are the main highlights which shed light on the deal between WIN and AOL.
- AOL is acquiring Weblogs Inc
- WIN are selling to increase the resources that they couldn’t provide otherwise (offices, technology, people, infrastructure) as well as extra traffic.
- AOL are moving to an ad based model which fits with WIN.
- Nothing is changing - Brian, Jason and the same management will continue to run WIN as an independently operated AOL company
- WIN headlines will start appearing on AOL home page, netscape, AIM etc
- Bloggers will need to sign a new contract shortly
- The new contract will allow bloggers to own their own content for offline use
- The contract will contain other features yet to be announced that are favorable to bloggers
- Blogging will continue as per usual
- There is no increase in pay mentioned but allusions to more money in the network due to the deal
- There is mention of AOL getting into video content and WIN playing a part in this
Wow - looks like an exciting time for Weblogs Inc bloggers!
More on the deal from Reuters
Update: My source tells me that the reaction from WIN bloggers is for the most part very positive with the news that Jason staying on, increased payments and traffic causing some real excitement.
Written on October 6th, 2005 at 03:10 pm by Darren Rowse
Gawker Media Potential Sale to News Corp
I just got an email from Duncan at Blog Herald that there are also rumors of Gawker Media being in talks with News Corp with the purchase of Gawker being the topic of conversation. He’s written about it at Gawker Media in Sales Talks. Unfortunately Blog Herald seems to be having server problems so I’m unsure what the substance of the story is apart from that Duncan says that his source is a good one.
Take it as rumor at this point but certainly an interesting one. I’m not sure it’s got as much credability as the WIN rumors to be honest.
Update: Looks like Duncan has his blog up and running again and the rumor is that News Corp is interested in the gossip blogs at Gawker more so than their others. It is certainly an interesting time for established blog network owners with this news, the rumored sale of Weblogs Inc and other networks being approached by VC investors.
Update II: I’ve done some digging around and the more I talk to people the more unlikely this story sounds. I’ve had a chat to some inside people and they deny it.
Also the more I think about it the more I doubt it - I mean can you imagine Fleshbot and Defamer etc in News Corp? Gawker is the edgey blog network - the one that prides itself on offending and breaking a few rules. Maybe my sources are just trying to put me off the scent - but I just can’t see it selling to News Corp or any other mainstream media outlet.
Written on October 6th, 2005 at 12:10 pm by Darren Rowse
AOL to Buy Weblogs Inc
I was just saying to a fellow blogger the other day that it will only be time before a bit blog network sells out to a bigger web entity for some massive amounts of cash. Well today seems to be that day with Threadwatch reporting that AOL is about to by Weblogs Inc!
Paid Content writes of the deal by saying:
“This is a very quick exit: the company was founded about two years ago, and took some money from Mark Cuban a year down the line. For Calacanis, this is his second company being sold in a space of about two years…his original company Rising Tide Studios was first sold to Wicks Business Information, which in itself was bought out by Dow Jones.”
How much will they get? I guess this will depend upon what the deal includes and how involved the Weblogs Inc team stays involved with the project. Estimates of what the deal is worth at Paid Content range from $20,000,000 to $35,000,000.
The deal is expected to be announced officially this week.
Update: Get the official word from AOL and Jason.
Update: Interesting commentary on the sale at Wealth Junkie.
Written on October 6th, 2005 at 09:10 am by Darren Rowse
Blog Adverting Moguls
Interesting article over at Clickz on A Tale of Two Blog Adverting Moguls - John Battelle from Federated Media Publishing and and Philip Kaplan from Adbrite - both of whom are making a mark for themselves in Blog-vertising.
‘One is a celebrated bubble-era publisher, an Internet consultant, a book author and — currently — a blog advertising entrepreneur. The other? Well, he could be described exactly the same way. Yet could two men be more different than John Battelle and Philip “Pud” Kaplan?…’
It’s refreshing to see an article taking a slightly different spin on things than normal.
Written on October 5th, 2005 at 09:10 pm by Darren Rowse
Do Shorter Posts = Better Posts?
Steve at Micro Persuasion asks his readers whether Shorter Posts = Better Posts?
‘Would you rather have fewer posts with more depth or frequent short posts with high value information? It’s hard to combine them (and maintain a life).’
My answer is that it depends upon a number of factors including the authors available time, the topic, the established pattern of blogging (more on this in a future post) and the voice that the author writes in (ie Steve’s blog is predominantly a link blog and doesn’t get into tips, theory etc which can take longer posts).
What do you think? Head over to Steve’s and let him know.
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