For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, tonight I offer a Blogging Question.
Here you go. . . .
People keep asking me What does a blog network offer a blogger?
I suppose that I should expect to get this question more than most people might. I always have trouble explaining my answer, because my answer is unique to who I am.
Today it hit me. The question isn’t right. The question should be:
What does a being part of a blog network offer READERS?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Okay I’ll start . . .
I know I couldn’t have gotten all that got done on Successful-Blog this week–changed servers, changed designs, got the feeds all worked out and blogged as usual, if I had tried as one blogger on my own. My readers got a much smoother switch.
Liz
A blog network basically is like a newstand. You got all these blogs staring at you. Trying to grab your attention with eye-catching titles and subjects.
You pick out the one that interests you most and stick with it. It then becomes like a televesion series. Where you get addicted to it and find a way to read it everyday. Comment from time to time to get some reaction from the other readers or the blogger him/herself.
I dunno, I guess I just like networks because it somehow collects all the things that you MIGHT want to read. It gives the blogs more exclusivity. I mean, if these blogs sucked, they wouldn’t be here, right?
Ahhhkk…it’s just my opinion.
Hi Taroist,
And a valid opinion it is!
A good network should make it easier for a reader to find what he or she is looking for in the millions of blogs on the Internet.
Well said.
Liz
I know for myself, in my “Bloglines” … it’s easier to sort blogs by Blog Network .. than by topic .. is this amusing read? must-read? tech read? web 2.0 read? article for my blog read? weekly read?
But, I’ve got almost 900 rss feeds in there – i need to sort it somehow .. I’m kooky that way .. if it works for me, then I do it that way ..
Taorist also has a point too .. when I’m in the mentality of reading blogs, or have time to do that .. i tend to stay in a general folder and then surf the sidebars within the blogs. Because they are sorted by network, I tend to hover a network more frequently at times, then suddenly stop while I am elsewhere. I assure you, I’m not stalking you. No. Really. I’m not.
HART
Hi HART!
How are you!
Maybe it’s me staking you out! 🙂 A reverse stalking thing here. . . .
Networks have the opportunity to put forward a menu the same way a great restaurant does, and if they do that artfully, they are serving the reader by saving the reader time surfing those millions of blogs that David Sifry already said that no one can read all of them anyway.
Liz
i.c. but .. please .. if you are staking me out .. can you change it to .. STEAKing me out? I like Filet Mignon, Medium Well .. tyvm. 🙂
HART,
I’m sorry. I looked in the kitchen. All we have is a Porterhouse. Will that do ya? 🙂
Liz
In my opinion the advantages of a blog network are very much weighted towards the network owners then the individual blogger and not the readers.
But similar to what Taroist mentioned, I’ve always said that being part of a blog network is like when you get your hand stamped to enter the vip section of a nightclub, it makes you cool by association. A network gives the blogger a level of instant authority who the reader can trust will give them value for their five minutes of daily reading time. That obviously only applies to the section of a blog’s readership who is actually aware of the network’s reputation which you could assume is quite small.
Though to be honest, as a reader I don’t get anything from the network links on the side of this blog from either when it was at Fine Fools, Erati or now at b5. My guess is you wouldn’t link to 95% of those sites if you weren’t part of a network so why do so now? If I wanted to know something about Mischa Barton I’ll look it up on Google because it won’t hurt my Successful Blog experience if I don’t have one click access to b5’s Mischa blog. Networks should keep individual blogs clean by using that space in a way that genuinely benefits the reader and pursue a separate portal like strategy if one of their goals is to promote blogs on mass.
Anthony,
I’ve heard you say the first part before, but I find the argument in the last paragraph particularly compelling. I think that is/ was part of the reason for breaking b5media into channels. So that individual blogs could feature only the channel to which they are part. So I’m not sure that the entire blog roll will be staying–or NOT.
But as I said you make a complelling argument as to why it should not.
Liz
The last paragraph was much bigger with a huge amount of justification for my position with examples from magazine publishers and satellite radio but I cut it all out because I knew you’d see what I was getting at.
I fully understand why those network links are there and if I ran the network I’d probably keep them in some form but just thought I’d give you my answer to your question from purely a readers view point.
Thanks Anthony.
For that, I asked in good faith and you answered in like. I want to know because the reader’s view is the only one important to me. Yes, sometimes I can’t do anything about it . . . this time it could be that if the list shortens the replacement would ads anyway. . . . but at least I’m aware of what my readers think and see.
Liz
I’m get so jealous when someone points out something so obvious I didn’t see. You’re right. The question about why be a part of a network was wrong.
I think a successful network has a personality which readers would like to be a part of. Now I am sure that there are other high-end National Enquire-esque sites in the blogosphere but reading anything on the Gawker network makes me feel (like Anthony said) like one of the cool kids.
As a reader, few, if any, of the other networks, strike me has having any personality at all. If I didn’t write about them I surely wouldn’t care to much about them.
But I think that’s because of the writers. Gawker is not about the writers. Few know, or care who they are. It’s selling an experience. On the other hand, b5 is all about the writers. That makes the experience more personal but it also makes it harder for the network to be cohesive because the individual writers will be bombarded with “…why are you a part of b5, again?” I’m investing my time in you, not the network.
Am I making sense? I’ll get my thoughts together and write a post on my own blog. Thanks for being smarter than me and giving me the space to think 🙂
Chartreuse,
If jealous is the word, I feel that way often at your site. You hit the target all the time. I think we’re good for each other that way.
You’re making total sense. In fact, you make a really good point by extending what Anthony was saying over into the Gawker experience, especially how you show the counterpoint.
It will be fun to see where you go with this.