Influence and power go hand in hand. Once you got people's attention, there's a lot people who will come to scratch your back. There's thousands of examples on the Web with bloggers starting their own site with an Adsense business model. Some of them are so successful they end up working in a narrow relationship with politicians (LeMeur/Sarkozy). Once you cross that line, what is left of your integrity as a writer?
What's the next step for influent tech bloggers on the Internet? Blogs like Techcrunch or Read Write Web obsessively review an incredible amount of information about tech startups, and provide an expert opinion on the matter. Those bloggers like Michael Arrington release information fresh off the oven. The Techcrunch blog actually gained the popularity we know today by being the first to unveil the rumors about Google acquiring Youtube.
Those sites play a very positive role for the development of the Web industry, helping people to get opinion-processed updates about the WEB industry. Problem is, being a trend-setter has hidden counter-effects: broadcasting is influencing, and influence is power, the fruit of money. The journalist/advertiser relationship dilemma applies for bloggers too. Compare those two approaches:
Lewis PR killed Second Life
Will The Last Corporation Leaving Second Life Please Turn Off The Light
The first headline comes from this site, and the second was written on Techcrunch. Both talk about the same event. The first one was inspired by the second one. But the second one has Lewis PR as a major advertiser. Writers at Techcrunch usually tend to be more straight forward than this.
This observation confirms that the blogger/advertiser relationship dilemma exists (6th paragraph). Even though we still need this kind of opinion-processed information to keep an intelligent eye on the market, blogs could assemble a different set of tools and a reviewed business model to deliver a more objective (less client-defensive) information.We need opinions to process information faster, but we need complementary tools to counter balance the cognitive shortcuts we're over-exploiting.
How? First, a lot can be learned from Techmeme, which exploits the RSS Technology to put together related blog posts in a very informational manner. Gabe Rivera considers the Web as an organic whole and makes its site an organ-watcher.
Techmeme shows that a set of XML objects are enough to provide insightful info.
Independent writers are not independent anymore the minute their traffic reaches consequential heights. Popular media face the challenge of censorship and mass-simplification on a regular basis.
Other business models exist: One is, instead of aiming for a set of advertisers to generate revenue, depend on one sponsor that will pay for every expenses in exchange of being the exclusive sponsored link on the site.
Some companies face the real challenge of having no incentive messages to spread. Sponsoring a Website directly implied in providing resourceful info about an industry is the best way to gain brand awareness in this industry and generate quality traffic.
If writers don't process any information, then what's the point? Who's writing what. As said before,the information can be gathered in a different way (feed aggregation) and the source of info can be somewhere else than in your influent blogger email box. For example, consider that almost all WEB companies have a companion blog, which is a great source of info. Syndicating the news from a wide variety of companion blog may be more valuable than expected.
RSS feeds to gather info is a central tool, but additional tools might be just as good: Rich media, offsite links to additional/more precise info, graphic chart, catchy blog name, listings,...
You name it. Don't overuse tools, but turn your site into an info intersection, and many passers-by will come your way.
Easy to say, but do we have any examples here? Behold my newly launched blog, Hyve Up: it does exactly what I've just described. The funder is a Chinese software company setting a strong foothold in the United States. The blog started based upon the same observations made above.
Now it might be a little too soon to declare victory: The site just launched, the link building campaign has barely started, and many people turn my offer away (they don't like rookeys in this industry).
Interested to know more about it, take a tour and contact me for more details or feedbacks.
