Recent Blog Entries
The People Are The Brand
Written by Scrivs on August 22, 2005
At the Blog Business Summit last week I had the pleasure speaking on the subject of building blog networks with Shawn Gold from Weblogs, Inc and Stowe Boyd from Corante. Towards the end of our panel this question came up (paraphrased):
How do you handle your writers being picked up for other ventures and leaving your network?
While this question didn’t pertain to the 9rules Network because everyone in it owns their own site I was interested to hear what Shawn’s thoughts were on it. I was surprised to hear the answer even though I shouldn’t have been considering their business model, but he said that the blog is the brand and not the people so losing them is simply part of the business.
I almost countered him, but understood that they have to think this way because it’s their business model. However, I always found that the writers are the ones that make the blog. Blogs are about content and without the writers voice there is no content. That’s what I love about our network. Airbag isn’t a brand without Greg Storey’s voice behind it so how could one see differently? Find an interesting writer and you could even make the Ultra Wideband Weblog a brand. Till then it’s just a site with plain writing.
I was speaking with Jason Calacanis not too long ago and he mentioned that our model has the “Martha Stewart” problem where if one of our readers goes crazy it reflects badly on the network. While this may be true, our members understand that it reflects worse on their sites (their pride and joys) than it does us. I would think that the “Martha Stewart” problem would be even worse on a site in the Weblogs, Inc network because it definitely reflects badly on their company since they own the site.
While I fully understand the thinking that you can create a site with a brand and attach writers to it, I don’t think I will be a firm believer in that philosophy any time soon.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:55 am
No doubt, the writer makes the blog. But writers can be interchangeable sometimes… look at Gizmodo, for example. They’ve been through 3 (I think) writers over the past couple of years but kept their brand totally consistent.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:00 am
I’d disagree for the simple fact that when Rojas left and started Engadget look how many people went with him. Fortunately for Gizmodo there are only two major gadget blogs, otherwise I am not to sure how it would’ve survived.
If Rojas left Engadget many people would follow him because they like his writing and his style. Sure people would stay at Engadget, but I bet he could get more people to his own blog if he started one. His brand is that strong. If that wasn’t the case then WIN wouldn’t have gone after him in the first place.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:24 am
I don’t know anything about Gizmodo’s traffic numbers, but to say “they kept their brand totally consistent” is not to say that they stayed as popular as ever after Rojas left.
So if you’re talking about success, sure — good writers are essential to achieving and keeping success. You always need that. But I think in the case of a non-personal site (i.e. not any of the sites in 9rules) you can maintain your brand between writers, even though you may lose some popularity in the process.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:32 am
But do you think the Gizmodo “brand” would’ve been established without Rojas first working on it? Same could be said about Wonkette.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:47 am
Absolutely not. Both Rojas and Cox were central to establishing their site’s brands. Excellent point.
I imagine as those writers are (well, were in the case of Rojas/Gizmodo) replaced with others, the brand will be weakened and start to stray from what made it successful in the first place.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:56 am
So in the end we see eye to eye. Glad you are willing to see that I was obviously right from the very beginning John :-P.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:00 am
Damn you and your mind tricks! I guess that’s why your the CEO and I’m just a member :-/
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:50 am
This is interesting. Since Cork Force seems to have recently been sold, and is now under new management, does this mean it will be removed from the network, since “the people are the brand”?
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:51 am
Also, I cannot spell (your/you’re).
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:54 am
I reckon the brand is the whole thing - blogger, blog and commenters. Yes, the first blogger is usually the one who sets the tone, but he or she does not really control the brand. Once the comments come in, you have a brand which is out of your control (PS that’s a good thing).
If a big enough community builds up round a topic or a blog, the blogger can actually change without anyone really noticing - look at the posts on ToDone which have been written by Peter Flaschner. I am still seeing him referred to as Keith, by the people who link to Peter’s posts, for example open Loops.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:11 am
Great question Pierce. Corkforce is under the same situation that Notablewords was before and that is a wait and see approach. Different writers bring different styles and we can’t judge them until we see the quality they bring to the table. Obviously if it’s not up to the standards we are trying to set they will be removed and they are well aware of that.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:39 am
The bottom on line on this is that two things are occuring at the same time that seems to be contridictory:
1. Blogs can live on if their blogger leaves (i.e. Gizmodo, Gawker, etc)
2. Bloggers can leave a blog and go on to bigger and better things (Peter Rojas, Elizabeth Spiers)
My main point with the “Martha Stewart” problem is about branding. If you brand your blog “Joe’s Car Blog” then it’s kind of hard for Jane to come in and blog it when Joe retires/moves on. We’re trying to build sustainable blogs that can continue to grow if one of our bloggers takes a vacation, retires, or moves on to another gig.
We’ve had major bloggers leave the network over the past year… we thought they would have a huge impact on the traffic and it turns out they didn’t. Are the blogs they worked at doing as good as they would have if they stayed? Maybe, maybe not… depends on how good the person we get to replace is frankly.
In the case of Gizmodo, Nick looks at losing Peter and says to himself “Gizmodo is bigger then it’s ever been.” He is excited about that fact.
However, I look at it and say “Engadget gets 2-3x the traffic of Gizmodo despite Gizmodo huge lead in the space.” I’m excited about that fact.
So, we’re both excited about the success of the two sites even though it’s very clear that Engadget is the bigger and better blog.
I agree with Shawn the blog brand trumps the blog in *most* cases. Every once and while (say one out of 25 blogs) the blogger is the difference. That’s not to take anything away from teh blogger… the same is true for CEOs. You could replace me with 20 other CEOs and the business might wind up doing as well or better!
August 22nd, 2005 at 1:18 pm
Hey Jason, thanks for weighing in. Have you had writers leave any of your sites? How has that affected the brand and the success of those sites?
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:51 pm
The brand is the brand. People represent the brand and what your brand stands for. So either your bloggers are in alignment with your brand or they aren’t. The Brand usually is not about the content of a blog but what the blog stands for and represents in the larger media.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:44 am
I think it depends on what is being branded… the blog content, or the author.
For example, no one else could do Dooce… it’s Heather Armstrong and could only ever be her. On the flip side, take a blog like uncrate.com… anyone could do that.
You could use Network TV Anchors as an analogy to this stuff. The Big Four Networks brand the anchor just as much as they brand the show (ie, Nightly News w/ Tom Brokaw). However, a place like CNN (ie, Headline News) could rotate multiple anchors and it would still be the same show.
September 16th, 2005 at 11:27 am
[...] her entries in Member Sites. A couple of weeks ago I wrote an entry titled, The People Are The Brand, where I argued that a blog is nothing without the writers behi [...]