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Blogs and the business of community

Started by mathewi · 5 months ago

It’s been kind of fun to watch the reaction to Mike Arrington’s recent “rambling manifesto” (as Henry Blodget called it at Silicon Alley Insider) about the future of blogs and the wisdom — or lack thereof — in getting ventur ... Continue reading »

18 comments

  • howardlindzon

    5 months ago

    I can live with panache. a little light in the socks, but I am confident in my manhood :)
    reply
  • mathewi

    5 months ago

    Yeah, nothing intended by that -- I just like the word :-)


    On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Disqus
    reply
  • howardlindzon

    5 months ago

    Your style is quite soufleeeish as well
    Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
    reply
  • mathewi

    5 months ago

    Thanks. I hate Judy Garland movies though.


    On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 4:25 PM, Disqus
    reply
  • Sramana Mitra

    5 months ago

    reply
  • antje wilsch

    5 months ago

    One thing I doubt has been studied yet - the more I read a blog, the less I notice what goes on "around" it. I skip right over any ads - i know exactly where they are and my eyes are trained now to jump automatically. Every once in a while an image might catch my eye but it's rare. And obviously on feeds I don't look at any ads at all.

    So I wonder if having a loyal & repetitive core audience that reads blogs regularly is more fruitful than new eyeballs. I actually notice print ads a lot more than I do online ads, probably b/c of their strategic placement (newspapers, magazines) - fit in and around the cotent. But that's not really working on the web, and even worse (IMHO) on blogs.
    reply
  • mathewi

    5 months ago

    That's true I think, Antje -- and of course anyone who reads solely by
    RSS gets no ads at all, or very few.


    On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Disqus
    reply
  • antje wilsch

    5 months ago

    I wonder what the value really is of a social network user or a blog reader, vs. a reader of a portal or someone using a search engine. Working with design I'm all about standardisation, consistency, and following norms so users don't get lost or confused But I'd bet this conformity is an anathema to Advertisers.

    Speaking of, this has got to be one of the most clever ads I've seen in a long time (send it to yourself first so you see how it works): http://www.icetruck.tv/index.php
    reply
  • Tim Burden

    5 months ago

    Antje, there's no way to close the ad and look at the content without filling out the form. That annoys the crap out of me.
    reply
  • antje wilsch

    5 months ago

    no no no sorry - you want the ad, not the crap underneath so unfortunately you *have* to fill out the form, send it to one of your list or reserve emails (we all have them!). It's clever.
    reply
  • Tim Burden

    5 months ago

    The message you sent to Tim requires that you verify that you
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  • antje wilsch

    5 months ago

    no idea, I didn't get that. This wasn't meant to be dragged out. If you don't want to fill in your info then don't. I used my "other" email - the one for all my lists" and used it.

    It's still pretty cool marketing thing and it's just for fun.... can't help that you canucks are spammers and not real people ;)
    reply
  • Tim Burden

    5 months ago

    Jesus...Disqus and Boxtrapper don't play well together. Sorry Mathew...will fix this.
    reply
  • dirk Petersen

    5 months ago

    speaking of "community," what i find intriguing is that we're still chattering about a non-event more than two days after the arrington post. hats off to arrington, though. when it comes to stoking an artificial flame to draw clicks, he does it perhaps better than all the rest. but that has always troubled me. i don't pay much attention to techmeme as a accurate barometer of web influence - but it does generate a self-reinforcing effect within that circle of posters/readers. but the pack journalism nature of the exercise is dreadful to watch. it's almost like clockwork. first arrington posts, then scoble adds a paragraph, then dave winer, maybe you, too, matthew, and all the others, etc. etc. it's conversation but - well, i'll leave it to the community to decide whether it's important conversation, or just artifically ginned up for the sake of drawing clicks to a particular web site
    reply
  • mathewi

    5 months ago

    Dirk, I'm sure Mike is happy to have it on Techmeme and get traffic
    and links, but I honestly don't think that's why he wrote it -- or why
    I and most others responded. I actually think there are important (or
    at least interesting) issues involved.


    On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 8:34 PM, Disqus
    reply
  • Yuval Evron

    5 months ago

    wow, you hit upon something that's been building inside of me for weeks. i have to agree with your description. it's like a cyber version of high school with all the "cool kids" auditioning for their friends. groupthink taken to a ridiculous degree. i saw mathew's response below and maybe he didn't respond out a desire for more clicks but there was nothing of great value in arrington's post. it was a click troll's wet dream - pardon my french. there are SO many, many other interesting topics in technology right now. but when you look at the herd or pack mentality which predominates on techmeme, you just have to shake your head.
    reply
  • Ankit Maheshwari

    5 months ago

    Hi Mathew,
    I am the CEO of Instablogs Network. Thanks for the mention, but I want to point our one thing here. Instablogs has its offices in India, but out of total traffic India's share is around 15%.

    One thing which we pride ourselves is that we have a very good activity from almost all of the countries. Though we still have a long way to go, but Instablogs is turning out to be a big platform where people from different regions, interests and taste come and share their opinions.

    Do check out few countries for e.g. United States Community
    reply
  • mathewi

    5 months ago

    Thanks for the comment, Ankit -- and thanks for pointing that out. I
    didn't mean to suggest that you were exclusively India-focused at all,
    I just noticed that a lot of the stories with comments were related to
    India -- and of course, those comments could be coming from anywhere.
    In fact, one of the things I liked about Instablogs was that you can
    choose which country or region you want to see content from. So
    thanks for mentioning that.


    On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 2:12 AM, Disqus
    reply

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