If you are blogging for the last five or six years then you surely remember that in 2005 and 2006 there were many blog networks visible in Internet. These days, most of them are gone and in other words, they are no longer in business. Some very big networks with more than 100 blogs have disappeared or changed their business. The economic recession that started from the middle of 2008 played the most damaging part. Now, things look better at least for the USA economy and there is a possibility that we may see old blog networks coming back or new ones being created. On the other hand, things may not become so easy for various reasons. In this entry, I am going to explore the possibilities and problems of blog networks.
As I have just mentioned that the economic recession that started from the middle of 2008 and continued until the end of 2009, caused massive damage to the blog networks. The main problem that happened is that almost all the blog networks saw their revenue getting decreased because of poor income from advertisements. All the blog networks used to earn money against traffic or page views. The more traffic or page views they could manage, the better possibility they had of earning more money. The recession caused bad business for everyone and the companies could not spend like past for ads. The same thing happened to Google Adsense. If you have Adsense for the last three or four years, then you should have noticed significant decrease in EPCM or Earning for Per Thousand Impressions from Adsense, no matter what kind of topic you have.
I like to talk about three very large blog networks that got closed during the recession. The first network is Know More Media in which I used to blog. I used to write in South Asian Biz and Indian Raj websites for them. Know More Media had around 100 blogs and they closed their business in the end of July in 2008. Creative Weblogging was another very big blog network with around 150 blogs. That website is still there but has no sign that it was such a big network. The last blog network that I want to talk about is B5Media which in its prime time had more than 300 blogs. The economic recession changed them and B5Media now has changed its business style. In fact, B5Media is no longer a blog network but it likes to call itself as life style publisher.
During the time of recession, while blog networks got closed we saw another style of content websites becoming popular. Examiner.com is such an example. It started to hire many people in 2009 and 2010. It is still continuing hiring many people. The basic idea behind Examiner.com is that it has hired many people in USA and Canada and then ask them to write about local news. I do not know about the current payment system of the Examiner.com but until a few months ago, they used to pay around $9 or $10 for 1000 page views.
Another example of this kind of content website is HubPages. It flourished during the recession and its idea is to give nearly 60% of the revenue to the bloggers or writers (they display writer’s Ads 60% of the time and their own ads 40%). Perhaps the poster boy of the new kind of networks is Demand Media. Demand Media did not go for revenue sharing or paying for traffic. It gives flat fee. Demand Media became very successful and got valuation of around $1.3 billion.
All these new publishers went mainly for Google search engine results. Their goal is very simple- to get in the top three or five positions of Google search results for as many keywords as possible. This kind of business model became successful but in the last few days, Google has decided to go tough against content farms. All of a sudden, some kind of uncertainty is hanging for their future.
AOL has invested heavily for acquiring big websites or blogs. In 2005, it bought the Weblogs, Inc. and it became the owner of successful blogs such as Engadget or Autoblog. In 2010, AOL bought TechCrunch and just a few weeks ago AOL bought Huffington Post. Thus, AOL has emerged as the biggest owner of the largest blog network although Weblogs, Inc blogs, TechCrunch and Huffington Post operate more and less autonomously or independently.
To answer the original question, I do not think that blog networks will make a come back in 2011 because I cannot find enough entrepreneurs. More than that there is a feeling that content websites like Examiner.com, HubPages and Demand Media have become very large and become the successful model. It will be perhaps difficult for new blog networks to compete against them.
Finally, although the worst impact of recession is finished, revenue from advertisement has not comeback to the pre recession condition yet. If you have AdSense then you can easily compare your income of 2011 and 2008. Then you will understand what I am saying. However, there is no need to get frustrated because at the end of the day the number of internet users is increasing and the condition of global economy is becoming stable. So, the potential for earning money through blogs or blog networks will gradually come back to the pre recession condition. If it happens then we will see many new blog networks.
On the other hand, if Google can become successful against the content firms then we will see some entrepreneurs coming up with blogging networks focusing on quality content instead of creating content only for search engines. What do you think about it?
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