March 14, 2005
An Immodest Proposal: Where blogging and RSS are headed (or everything old is new again)
UPDATE (March 24, 2005): In "Bloggers have rights, too : Congressman John Conyers," Kevin O'Keefe of Real Lawyers Have Blogs provides an interesting assessment of the impact that the "blogger as journalist" argument may have on first-amendment rights and marketing blogs. Well worth the read. As is the original entry, "Bloggers have rights, too," that spawned the summary.UPDATE (March 17, 2005): Seth Godin provides a completely different view on the blog/RSS future, describing how blogging will move from its current broadcast-to-an-anonymous-audience stance to one that is much more personalized. Yahoo 360 anyone? Read Godin's "What happens next?"
UPDATE (March 16, 2005): Bob Wyman provides an incredibly thoughtful post on how Microsoft's sooner-than-needed entry into the world of blogging may adversely impact, or downright stifle, innovation in the market. Wyman says, "My fear is that we're only now beginning to learn what blogging and syndication are really about and that we would have learned a great deal more if the pre-Microsoft period of innovation had been permitted to last a bit longer. I am particularly concerned that Structured Blogging is not going to get the kind or variety of innovative attention that it might have received in a more open, chaotic and innovative market..."
UPDATE (March 15, 2005): News coming out of Search Engine Strategies... It's really nice to hear (literally) and read someone as excited about RSS as Amanda Watlington, who is "as excited about RSS as [she] was when [she] first started doing things in the Internet." Chris Pirillo has a great podcast interview with her, entitled "Searching for RSS Evangelism." (Amanda was nice enough to visit hypocritical and provide a comment, as well.) Also at Search Engine Strategies, Stephan Spencer provides a list of things to consider when dealing with RSS, entitled "RSS and SEO: Implications for Search Marketers." Very interesting stuff and well worth the read.
ORIGINAL POST
No doubt you have read more than your fair share of posts on how people are trying to find some way to make blogging and RSS feeds a profitable endeavor. Profitable as in I-can-quit-my-day-job-like-Jason-Kottke-and-blog-full-time profitable.
Currently, there are only a few (reputable) ways to try to accomplish this:
1) Solicit donations. Ala Kottke, if your reader base enjoys your content, and is fairly dedicated to returning time and time again, this may be a good route for you. Help me help you. On second thought, just help me or I'll starve. Very straightforward. Very Public Broadcasting Service. Without the pledge drives. Or with a never-ending pledge drive, depending on your view.
Everything old is new again: It's called a subscription.
2) Google AdSense (or advertisements in general). Even though I've already highlighted some things with which I have issue, running advertisements on your blog pages can be a means of creating some revenue for your site. And there are services that are beginning to offer RSS-feed advertising, like Kanoodle, so all those folks who never come to your site, but still read your content, have a chance to click, as well.
Everything old is new again: It's the tried and true, traditional publication advertising model.
3) Amazon associates (or other affiliate programs in general). I mention Amazon because, more likely than not, Amazon probably sells something that relates to your site, be it a book, music (I still wonder why iTunes has no affiliate program, but this is a topic for another time), kitchen utensils, whatever. If you are one of the lucky bloggers, you may have the ability to join affiliate programs that are more targeted to their audience, like the Guatemalan-weave affiliate program. Tres chic.
Everything old is new again: It's classified ads. Help someone sell something and take a cut.
That's not much, is it? I mean, as you can see, it's really a numbers game. Do I have enough traffic volume to bet on the fact that I'll have some revenue coming in through these services? How long can I stand the taste of ramen noodles?
It's a bit disheartening. So you begin to ask yourself, "Why? Why won't someone pay me to share my unique view and borderline-genius insights with world?" Take heart, little one, that time is coming.
So where do I, in all of my infinite wisdom see the blogging world finding its funding? (Please note that "my infinite wisdom" may already have been published as someone else's infinite wisdom which I have not yet encountered. If so, please comment and let me know where.) And why do I think that if it does, in fact, move in this direction, then we won't have to worry about a distinction between bloggers and journalists?
I'm thinking the solution to a variety of problems could be found in the following (including a revenue stream for publishers that will continue to raise the visibility of blogging):
1) Blog networks. About (now part of the New York Times) sort of started it, and Jason Calacanis' Weblogs, Inc. and Nick Denton's Gawker are making a run at it. Even ORBlogs (a collective of Oregon bloggers) falls into the category. Group a bunch of bloggers together, and en masse, they have the potential to generate enough revenue (using the techniques above) to support both bloggers and a company.
Everything old is new again: It's a magazine. It's a newspaper. It's a media outlet. Get a bunch of writers to write good stuff. Make sure the quality stays high. Target it to a particular market. Sell space to advertisers. Ta dah. It's worked offline in the dead-tree publishing industry for years and years and years. Don't think it won't work the same way online.
2) Syndication. Really simple or otherwise. We will soon get to a point where publications, desperate to have the best and the brightest working for them, but struggling to find enough of the best and the brightest to go around, will start syndicating blogs as content for publications. Perhaps even more exciting, we will see entirely new publications emerge, built completely on syndicated content from bloggers. And the ease of manipulating an RSS feed (or any XML for that matter) will make it a veritable cakewalk. You already see the publications creating their own RSS feeds and creating their own XML-driven sites. Don't you think they'll probably be capable of dealing with inbound feeds, as well?
The first people to capitalize on this revenue will be the cartoonists, like Spamusement. The syndication model is the most well recognized for the "cartoonist" group and has the lowest pain threshold for the publishers because, by and large, people don't assume that cartoonists "work on staff" at a publication. The blogerati, like Kottke, Scoble, and Rubel, aren't far behind. Then the weekly columnists will come in, and then finally, the tried and true hard-core journalists (that weren't already part of the previous groups).
Editors will be assigned to make sure the blogging is up to snuff, but in an effort to break news as quickly as possible, it will become even more "publish now, fix later" than it is today. So, in the not so distant future, you will be reading your favorite blogger on your favorite site or, even better yet, printed (gasp) in your favorite papers and magazines. I'm sure someone will coin a term for this soon enough. Oh wait, I've got it: Journalism.
Everything old is new again: Bloggers will be paid by column inch and will be able to sell the same content to multiple publications. Write once, sell again and again. This will likely be a direct connection between the blogger and the publication, until the formation of the...
3) Wire service. Combine the first suggestion (Blog networks) with the second (Syndication) and what do you get? Blog networks + Syndication = Wire service. Just as we have the AP and UPI wires for publications today, so too will we have blog-centric wire services for the publications of tomorrow.
These RSS wire services will have two flavors. One type of RSS wire will be a loosely affiliated group of bloggers, with no publication site of which to speak, much like the AP, UPI, and Reuters are today. (That is, you generally don't go to Reuters to read your news. You read it in a publication.) The second type will be a publication first, but it will provide an RSS wire so that other publications can syndicate its content. RSS will simply make this transfer of content a cleaner process.
Currently in the best position to take advantage of this? Anyone that you currently ping when you update your blog, Moreover, Syndic8, Blogdigger, and the like; the online aggregators, like Bloglines, Pluck, Feedster, and others, who will have the stats to know which blogs to pitch to subscribers next; blog-specific services like FeedBurner, Technorati; and of course, the aforementioned blog networks.
Everything old is new again: Publications will pay the wire service (which in turn will pay its bloggers) and the wire service will deliver content to the publications. Based on contractual obligations, publications will either a) publish the story outright or b) assign a blogger/writer to rewrite the story for the publication.
4) Advertorials. Finally, a way for the publishers to capitalize on the popularity of blogs, increase their advertising revenue, and highlight the value of blogs to a larger audience. Soon, just as we will see the publications approaching bloggers about syndicating blog content for their publications, so too will we see the bloggers approaching publications to move beyond traditional advertising. That's right. People are soon going to be asking for paid placement of an RSS feed in prime publication real estate. Just like when you're reading along in your favorite publication and suddenly come upon a story that doesn't look quite right. And you realize you're reading an ad. Or when you read a column that seems a bit too yellow to be traditional journalism. Soon, paid blog placement will bring that same uneasy feeling to your stomach.
Bloggers who have not entered the realm of the blogerati will use this opportunity to increase the visibility of their blogs. Placing them in front of a much larger reader base, much more quickly. This shortcut method to blog readership will be coveted, and as there is only so much real estate, it will be spendy.
Everything old is new again: Traditional publications are constantly searching for ways to expand their advertising options in efforts to attract new business. It's an advertorial.
I don't know that this stuff will ever truly come to pass. But it seems like it should. And mind you, I didn't even scratch the surface of where podcasting could take this whole thing (see "Why podcasting could be even bigger than Adam Curry's hair ever was (that's big)").
Suffice it to say that morphing the traditional models of journalism and publishing is one way to allow bloggers to make a living doing what they do, while remaining objective to their cause. You know how I like it when people refresh old ideas. And maybe just maybe, it will finally solve this whole blogger/journalist conundrum and validate blogging as a reputable means of delivering news, once and for all.
Am I off my rocker or out of touch? I know there are probably others thinking in this direction. But, all it takes is a comment to put me back in my place. And just remember, you'll never know the next crazy scheme I'm concocting, unless you return.
An Immodest Proposal: Where blogging and RSS are headed (or everything old is new again)
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