Online Media Cultist

I couldn’t sleep early this morning and wound up catching up on all manner of web geekery (you get extra points for web geekery on the weekend, I find, and triple if it’s before 8 am) when I was struck by something that Jason Calacanis said on CalacanisCast, with reference to Weblogs, Inc., the blog network that he founded:

We broke out when we went to a multi-brand strategy.

This is something that I think about a lot at Blogcritics (where I’m exec producer): how to take a highly (but not massively) successful online magazine of 1,800 writers and two million+ monthly page views (on pace to hit three million this month!) to the vaunted “next level.”

Now, I know that Jason’s (correct) argument is that Weblogs grew to be massively successful because it hit the consumer channels – web gadgets, cars, gaming, gossip – where there was already demand online. To do this, Weblogs found talented writers and paid them to be stars within their sphere, and then paid for advertising to draw readers on the hope that they would stick around and spread the word themselves.

Blogcritics began slowly embarking on a “multi-brand strategy” of its own in 2006 with the launch of Desicritics, a “spin-off” of the Blogcritics model (lots of volunteer writers, a bunch of editors, and a massive content publishing system developed by our whiz of a Technical Director, Phillip Winn) that focuses on India and South Asia.

In 2007, the pace of this strategy has both quickened greatly and changed to some extent. If Blogcritics and Desicritics can be thought of as online magazines or group blogs (we prefer the former!), the new batch of sites are more like “sole proprietorships,” where we turn over the reins to a highly motivated and talented writer who is looking to focus on a niche area of content. The ideal people for such gigs are not only talented and savvy in their area of expertise, but they are also self-promoters and online entrepreneurs in their own right.

So as you might guess the tricky part is finding the right people to run BC network (that’s what we call our blog network) sites. The great and tremendous advantage of being part of a strong grassroots online community that has been around for 4+ years is that our talent pool is rich and deep. Which is lucky too because unlike Weblogs, Blogcritics doesn’t have a budget to pay BC network publishers a salary – all the more reason for the need for self-motivated online entrepreneurs of the first rate!

Despite this challenge, the BC network is growing and has been a huge success thus far. Glosslip, helmed by Dawn Olsen, is a deliciously gossipy dream, bringing cutting sarcasm and real writing chops to the crowded but galactically enormous gossip space. BC Goodie Bag, run by the multi-talented Anna Creech, is a showcase of video clips and other fun schwag from around the Interwebs. And Josh Hathoway’s Confessions of a Fanboy (or COAF, as I like to call it) is a delightful and manic exploration of music and the mind of the music addict.

Then there’s little old Online Media Cultist, the latest BC network venture. While I’d love to have three million page views straight out of the gate (and wouldn’t we all?) I’m extremely pleased with how things are going thus far. The comments have been great, and I can’t tell you how much fun it is to chat about webby goings on.

The next phase of the BC network rollout is ambitious, with sites covering independent film, television, theater, comics, politics (a big announcement coming here down the road) and one or two others I can’t think of at the moment in the works.

So the challenge here is to reach multi-brand success without start-up capital (read = ability to pay writers or buy advertising). Because of the experience and expertise of the Blogcritics organization in the blog space and its pool of homegrown talent, I believe that the model is there to be not just highly but massively successful.

And whatever the case, it’s a hell of a fun ride!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 2:29 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: bc goodie bag, bc network, blog networks, blogcritics, blogging, calacaniscast, confessions of a fanboy, desicritics, glosslip, jason calacanis