Twilight of the Blogs Are they over as a business?

WebForging · 02-17-2006, 09:25 AM

moneybox Commentary about business and finance.

Twilight of the Blogs
Are they over as a business?
By Daniel Gross
Posted Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006, at 5:14 PM ET

[Ed. note: The intro to yesterday's blog at http://www.slate.com/id/2136437/ ]

As a cultural phenomenon, blogs are in their gangly adolescence. Every day, thousands of people around the world launch their blogs on LiveJournal or the Iranian equivalent. But as businesses, blogs may have peaked. There are troubling signs—akin to the 1999 warnings about the Internet bubble—that suggest blogs have just hit their top.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The article goes on to give some $ numbers on blog purchases and draws comparisons to the internet bubble.

Regards,
Keith

saurab · 02-26-2006, 12:49 PM

blogs for the most part have google adsense / YPN as their revenue model ..... of course there's chitika, and a few affiliate programs (like amazon) which can bring in some revenues..... but most blogs rely on contextual advertising. So, the financial viability of a blog is directly related to the success of these ad programs....

As for selling blogs, the only issue is for those blogs that have the blogger as an essential component of the blog..... On the other hand, a blog that plays down the role of the blogger itself will not have problems getting sold (as long as it is profitable).

Consider a blog where you have a lot of personal posts.... such a blog will be difficult to sell off... because the popularity of the blog may well depend on the blogger and not just the blog content.

WebForging · 10-24-2008, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saurab

blogs for the most part have google adsense / YPN as their revenue model ..... of course there's chitika, and a few affiliate programs (like amazon) which can bring in some revenues..... but most blogs rely on contextual advertising. So, the financial viability of a blog is directly related to the success of these ad programs....

As for selling blogs, the only issue is for those blogs that have the blogger as an essential component of the blog..... On the other hand, a blog that plays down the role of the blogger itself will not have problems getting sold (as long as it is profitable).

Consider a blog where you have a lot of personal posts.... such a blog will be difficult to sell off... because the popularity of the blog may well depend on the blogger and not just the blog content.

Excellent observations, saurab!

The more of 'yourself' (your own personality and viewpoints, etc.) you put into your blog, the less it may be worth. On the other hand, if you are a fairly transparent 'persona' and you blog with an objective, impartial "look and feel" to your posts, you have less of your personality in the blog and it may, therefore, be worth more because someone else can replicate, or pay to replicate, similar content with a similar look and feel.

Makes sense.

Regards,
Keith

dgridley · 10-24-2008, 06:59 PM

I don't think blogs have hit puberty yet, let alone the twilight years.. our collective experiences with blogs promise to change and mature significantly over time.

Saurab, some interesting points.. tho most wouldn't be willing to part with a truly personal blog.

WebForging · 10-26-2008, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgridley

I don't think blogs have hit puberty yet, let alone the twilight years.. our collective experiences with blogs promise to change and mature significantly over time.

I have to agree with you, Dave. Blogs are one of the foundations of web 2.0, IMHO, and they're in their tweens, perhaps, while web 2.0 is in its infancy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgridley

Saurab, some interesting points.. tho most wouldn't be willing to part with a truly personal blog.

saurab - excellent points!

Regards,
Keith

dgridley · 10-26-2008, 02:01 PM

Blogs will tend to become more oriented toward multimedia as the technology becomes more affordable for the casual user. I've been tempted to get a helmet can and try wearing it for a bit for a first person perspective video blog experiment.

WebForging · 11-06-2008, 12:24 PM

Latest issue of Wired discusses the demise of the individual blog. The top 100 are team / corporate efforts. That's fine... those will be healthy only as long as there exists a broad base of individual blogs to popularize the biggies, IMHO.

Regards,
Keith

dgridley · 11-06-2008, 09:37 PM

I think individual blogs could be returning to their roots: the social diaries or blogs. Blogs will always evolve.. as tech becomes more accessible, I predict we'll see more multimedia and less creative writing on individual blogs.

WebForging · 11-06-2008, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgridley

I think individual blogs could be returning to their roots: the social diaries or blogs. Blogs will always evolve.. as tech becomes more accessible, I predict we'll see more multimedia and less creative writing on individual blogs.

...and perhaps more creative multimedia, including writing.

Regards,
Keith

dgridley · 11-06-2008, 11:18 PM

Hopefully you're right Keith.. but writing is evolving like anything else.. I think we'll slowly see it being replaced by other mediums. After all, a picture is worth a 1000 words.