Chad Randall, Vice President (Sales) for b5media is no longer with the company, The Inquisitr has learned and confirmed through an online source.

The circumstances behind his departure though have not been disclosed. What we do know is that at the time of writing Randall has not been replaced, and we are unable to find the position advertised online either at the b5media blog, or through an extensive Google search.

Without 100% certainty, the evidence points to Randall being put off unexpectedly. He’s removed b5media as his current job on LinkedIn, he hasn’t replaced it with a new job. He’s also disappeared online, not updating his Twitter account or blogs since he left the company; that’s more significant than it sounds because one of Randall’s blogs is dedicated to Twitter marketing, and he’s a heavy Twitter user. If he was leaving the company for another position or on happy terms, he would have likely mentioned it somewhere publicly, but instead there is silence.

Abolishing the position also makes sense in the context of cuts being made at b5media by new CEO Elaine Kunda. We’ve also heard second hand (so not verified) that b5media staff are nervous about job cuts at the moment. Randall was appointed to the position by former CEO Jeremy Wright and the two were close, so that his job would be the first to go isn’t surprising.

I’ve asked Randall for comment and will update the post if received. Given he’s likely under an NDA, I’d be surprised to receive a substantive response.

Update: Randall advises via email that he’s left the company to take a year off with his family. Interesting times at b5media and we wish him all the best, and I know from experience how family can suffer when you’re working a startup.

Standard disclosure: I was a founder of b5media but have had nothing to do with the company since November 2006.

Related posts:

1. b5media gets a new CEO
2. FM Publishing, b5media Announce Job Cuts
3. Exclusive: b5media selling off business blogs

Canadian blog network b5media is selling off its business blogs, and possibly its travel blogs (see below) as part of a restructure under new CEO Elaine Kunda.

According to sources familiar with the matter, b5media is shopping the blogs privately to other blog networks and potential buyers. Private sales are primarily used to ensure a smooth transition to a new owner outside of the public eye.

No one will go on the record, and we’re also not sure exactly how b5media is structuring the sale. The b5media business blog network was rolled into the one uber-blog under the name Bizzia earlier this year, and the travel blogs reside under the Blisstree site. It would be difficult to split the blogs out and sell them individually; I’d think Bizzia would be offered as the one site, with the travel blogs either being broken out of Bliss Tree, or they’re not on the market (note I’d couldn’t confirm the travel sale with a second source, only the business sale.)

The sale doesn’t come as a huge surprise for the network given the new management. CEO Elaine Kunda’s previous role at ZipLocal saw similar cost cutting before an eventual sale, something we noted when she took the position late July.

The Bizzia/ b5media business blogs have been the least successful vertical for the company, with Bizzia.com only managing to come in at 31,000 on Alexa. Notably as of 4pm Pacific August 19, there has been very little activity on the site in recent times, suggesting that some writers may have been let go.

We’ve asked b5media for comment and will update the post if we receive it.

Update: a spokesperson for b5media responded via email saying that the story was “unsubstantiated,” which by that I can only presume means they’re not going to confirm it.

Correction: the original post mentioned August 20, when the post went up August 19; my laptop time set to US Pacific (I’m in Seattle as I write this) however Calendar still on Australian Eastern. Apologies for the confusion.

My standard disclosure: I was a founder of b5media, but have had nothing to do with the company since November 2006.

Related posts:

1. SezWho lands b5media entertainment blogs
2. Outbrain lands b5media blogs
3. b5media abandons wide model in favor of uber blogs

Jeremy Wright, the founding CEO of blog network b5media has left the position after three years in place of Elaine Kunda.

Investor John Albright said in a statement that “Elaine is exactly the right leader for b5media, with her strong leadership and proven ability to lead top performing teams. We look forward to continuing our investment in b5media as they continue to build on their position as a leading online media company.”

Kunda comes to the position having previously led Ziplocal and worked with a number of newspapers. Her full resume (literally) is on Wikipedia here.

Wright said in a post on his personal blog that he was leaving due to burn out:

I did it because I was tired, burnt out and recognized that my life wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I was working too much, unhappy at home, unhappy at work and just felt completely blah. Basically I did it because a friend asked me what I wanted my life to be… It was then that I realized not only was I unhappy, but that I had no idea what I wanted my life to be.

Wright said that he remains on the b5media board but will have no day to day role with the company, and instead will pursue consulting work through his new company Netmobs.

(via The Blog Herald. Post disclosure here.)

Related posts:

1. Chad Randall and b5media part company
2. Exclusive: b5media selling off business blogs
3. b5media abandons wide model in favor of uber blogs

Blog network b5media is today beginning the largest restructure in its 4 year history, abandoning the wide blog model it was founded on in place of a series of content related uber blogs.

b5media made steps in this direction last year, when it started to create portals for its groups of blogs, however today’s step is a much more radical step for the company.

I spoke with CEO Jeremy Wright prior to today’s launch of the first blog rollup. Wright told me that while the earlier attempts at portal creation did well, they lacked on a couple of fronts. The original portals lacked content themselves, so although they fronted as a newspaper or media site, links went back to the individual blogs. Wright said as a strategy it confused visitors, and limited cross promotion opportunities between blogs.

The new uber blogs follw the same path taken by Silicon Alley Insider, ReadWriteWeb and others, roughly based on the Huffington Post model of multiple content streams under the one headline/ brand. Blogs exist under this structure, but more as sub-blogs, sometimes with their own branding within the site; something closer to a newspaper column.

And this is what b5media is starting to roll out today. First out of the gate is a relaunch of Splendicity, a site covering women’s things like beauty and makeup. Existing blogs, where the writers have been retained (some blogs are closing, although Wright didn’t specifiy which ones) come into Splendicity on a splendicity.com/blogname. Each existing blog maintains branding, although with a sub-header below the Splendicity brand within the site.

I asked Wright what he saw as the advantages of the move. Advertising, given the current economic climate naturally was a key reason. He explained (and as we’ve noted here previously) that selling ads on one big site is far easier a proposition that many small sites, even when the sum total of traffic is the same. Wright also noted that managing 40 odd separate blogs within a vertical created logistical issues with what they can do with ads; for example background/ theme brand campaigns, and even work with affiliate links/ ads.

Wright said that the move to larger sites also had other advantages that while not financial, would help with growth. One point: bloggers seeking PR material or exclusive information would be better placed representing a large blog with substantial figures, vs one of 300 odd smaller blogs. Think the advantages of scale and branding.

Notably the shift to the one site per vertical also sees a radical change in the way b5media pays its bloggers. The company was founded (disclosure, I was a founder) on performance driven payment, initially on a revenue share basis, and later on a traffic basis. Wright tells me that b5media has assessed its content mix and come to the conclusion that it can be worthwhile rewarding quality content that doesn’t always drive the highest page views. As the new sites roll out, bloggers will be offered a mix of performance and set rate (and where appropriate with bonus) payments. The short version is that b5media is moving in a signficant way towards fixed rate payments to bloggers.

Wright was also enthusiastic about taking community beyond comments alone. Although not launched today, Wright said that b5media was looking at adding social aspects to the uber blogs, something that’s far easier to implement and manage with smaller numbers.

Other b5media verticals will be rolled into uberblogs in the coming months, roughly on a 2 week timetable per vertical. The rough equation is 300 blogs going into 6, although Wright noted that they may maintain some stand alone blogs in their celebrity/ gossip vertical given the particularly high traffic some recieve.

It’s a smart move from b5media. The name of the game is to build strong brands that scale in a tight market. The model the company was founded on did work for a long time, but the market has changed. The only thing I don’t like about what is being launched today is the look of Splendicity, but Jeremy and I never agreed an aesthetics…and a number of other things. Bucket loads of win.

I’m also going to call this the end of the wide blog model. b5media was a widest of the wide, and in 3 months time it will have less sites than Gawker Media. It was fun while it lasted.

Related posts:

1. Exclusive: b5media selling off business blogs
2. Is the Blog Network model dying?
3. SezWho lands b5media entertainment blogs

This is a copy of the memo sent out to all staff detailing the changes.

As I’m sure you are all aware, the recent changes in the economy have forced many companies to make fundamental changes. While, thankfully, b5, our investors and our team saw a shakeup coming in early 2008, so we didn’t expand as aggressively as we would have otherwise, the current environment is one that we believe will continue through most (or all) of 2009 and, as a result we have set our main 2009 goal as a very simple one: get the company profitable so that we (with you) can continue providing great content for an incredibly diverse audience of more than ten million people around the world.

As part of driving towards profitability, the second half of 2008 was focused very much on balancing the need to grow with the need to bring costs down from a “growth focused” level to a “survive the worst economy in recent memory level”. As part of that, we rebalanced blogger pay, trimmed our conference and travel budgets, trimmed technical costs such as servers,
froze hiring and a number of other things. In spite of a smaller team than intended and smaller budgets, we still managed to test a lot of new programs including ad networks, portals, a new application infrastructure and pursuing entirely new revenue opportunities such as affiliate programs on product reviews.

However while we’ve cut many operational costs, capital costs and started growing entirely new revenue streams, we still needed to balance our staffing needs, specifically in areas where we had either hired for growth or where we were getting softer and less revenue-focused benefits. As part of that evaluation of human costs, we cut our advisory board, cancelled bonuses, cancelled hires, moved existing team into new positions (and didn’t fill their old positions), etc.

Sadly, during this process, several of b5media’s full-time team members were let go. Each of these, including Joey DeVilla, Darren O’Donoghue and Tony Tramontana, were significant parts of b5media and added very real value – however when faced with a choice between working with these amazing people and ensuring the company and community survived we were forced, given the current climate, to let these people go. It goes without saying that we did everything we could to ensure each individual was treated more than fairly.

In addition, however, budgetary restrictions around the Content team forced one further cut, and it is undoubtedly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do: ending Shai’s employment relationship with b5media.

As you undoubtedly know Shai came on as a “founder”, after her AboutWeblogs network agreed to merge with b5media just weeks after we’d launched. And ever since she has been a vibrant and heartening part of the b5media management, staff and community. The decision obviously does not reflect poorly on Shai, as she is one of the warmest, hardest working people I have ever had the honour of working with.

Ensuring b5media gets to profitability must be the focus of the business, which is why we have trimmed these costs, refocused our strategy and why we are evaluating a whole suite of revenue opportunities. While decisions are clearly incredibly hard and saddening and we wish we didn’t have to make them, we remain excited by the community and company that you have helped us build, by the potential of the business and its vision and by our team (that’s you!).

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Shai or any of the other amazing individuals who have recently left b5. They deserve every bit of thanks, encouragement and support that can be mustered and we wouldn’t be where we are without them.

Jeremy Wright

Disclosure: The Editor of this site is a former employee of b5media.

Related posts:

1. FM Publishing, b5media Announce Job Cuts
2. b5media gets a new CEO
3. Chad Randall and b5media part company

Social media advertising company FM Publishing, and blog network b5media have both announced job cuts as the recession continues to deepen.

FM Publishing cut 8 positions, and said in a memo published at Valleywag that company was repositioning its ads towards “conversational marketing” vs banner advertising. FM conversational ads have previously included bloggers providing personal recommendations in ads, and in video.

The number of staff cut at b5media wasn’t clear, but included “a number of” employees as well as one executive. A memo withheld by The Blog Herald (god knows why) allegedly spoke of “some belt-tightening measures that the company has had to do in line with its trimming of costs, refocusing of strategies and exploring of new opportunities.”

I corresponded with a b5media person recently and was told that ad sales have remained on target, although those targets may have been some what lower given the economic climate. The companies mix of lower end ads across a diverse range of properties, with lower writing costs places it well going forward, compared to blogs with exposure to fewer, but higher yield ads. A source familiar with the matter told me that the cuts were primarily about getting rid of dead wood to make sure the company is as strong as it can be given the broader market. Given similar cuts at Gawker Media that reason isn’t the least bit surprising.

Related posts:

1. The b5media Job Cuts Memo
2. Chad Randall and b5media part company
3. b5media gets a new CEO

Gawker Media was the first notable blog network, but Weblogs Inc was the first to truly go wide quickly in pursuit if growth. That Weblogs Inc model became the inspiration to many, from b5media, a company I was a co-founder of, through to hundreds of smaller and some larger players. Networks thrived during the good times as advertising rates climbed as companies flooded the space in pursuit of targeting blog readers, and blogging itself continued to grow.

In 2008 however, the picture is rapidly changing. The glory days of blog growth has passed, and while many blogs still grow (including this one), many don’t as market saturation makes the market harder than it has ever been. Throw in the economic crisis, and a slowing in online advertising growth, and things are starting to look grim.

The blog network model is under threat.

We reported November 3 that ReadWriteWeb has closed its blog network. Others including Glam Media are facing difficulties (although Glam is a hybrid network + ad network), and the father of blog networks Nick Denton is predicting a 40% drop in ad rates for 2009, after making widespread cuts around his network.

Weblogs Inc sites are thriving, although the company has had a complete makeover since being acquired by AOL 3 years ago. Many of the tech/ special interest blogs have been dumped in favor of a primarily lifestyle play, supported by the AOL portal itself, and the company is shifting to full time employees over the previous standard blog network contractor model. So while they offer good news, they are not a typical case.

One brand advantage

ReadWriteWeb while dumping its blog network is instead launching new blogs under the ReadWriteWeb banner (and on the ReadWriteWeb URL). The inspiration actually lies in traditional media to some extent, but I call this the Huffington Post model. The Huffington Post was an inspiration to the founding of this site, because they proved that you can mix different streams of content on a blog successfully on the one large site under the one brand.

The problem with going wide in a network is the need to have to build individual brands vs a single brand. By increasing content under the one url and one brand, you strengthen that brand instead of splitting your time between promoting multiple brands, even when those brands reside in the one network.

There’s also one other advantage the single brand/ blog method has: it’s easier to sell ads on one site than many sites. Often advertisers aren’t interested in network buys, and may prefer a one site buy over many (particularly where the verticals in the network are different), least this is my experience in the past. It’s easier selling 750,000 page views on one site than 2 million on 10 sites.

Vertical bundling?

My former company b5media was one of the best cases of a wide blog network model. At funding, the company had 250 blogs, and peaked at 350 blogs before cutting back (I don’t have the full number, but it’s around 300 today). Notably b5media has started to launch portal destination sites for its content, such as Starked.com for celebrity news, and Bizzia.com for business news, not replacing individual blogs, but bundling content by vertical, and establishing individual brands for each space. I asked CEO Jeremy Wright the question, and his response came down to verticals

Our belief is still in the “wide” sense (vs say a single vertical) but that you need REACH within EACH of the verticals you cover for it to work. You can’t just do 300-400 blogs or whatever and hope some kind of magic happens. Plus, you need BRANDS.

Slow bleed

The blog network model is dying, although it may never die entirely, and companies such as Weblogs Inc, Gawker, Shiny Media, b5media and others will likely have long futures ahead of them. For those starting new today, the days of building many sites, splitting the focus away from a key brand has passed, and the likelihood of new successful blog networks emerging in the short term is slim at best.

We are likely to see consolidation in the space over the coming years, as titles fold, merge, or join new entities, but even consolidation can lead back to the main brand, for example the Crikey blog network saw existing stand alone blogs come under the one URL, so although the brands continue to exist in some ways, they do so in a way that contributes to the overall brand.

The days of launching dozens of new sites under different URLs has definitely passed. The big blogs of tomorrow will likely be mega-sites that often focus on content outside a key vertical, under the one brand.

(img credit)

Related posts:

1. b5media abandons wide model in favor of uber blogs
2. RWW dumps Alt Search Engines (update: RWW blog network shuts)
3. Weblogs Inc veterans launch new blog network

New SezWho functionality includes four new profile templates, including support for popular threaded discussion formats. More importantly for site owners, SezWho now offers support for local CSS and JavaScript. Other new features include Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down ratings for posts, configurable pop-ups, improved support for filtering, support for multiple WordPress installations in a single database, and easier upgrading.

SezWho has also announced a new partnership with Instablogs, that will see SezWho bring reputation management and universal profiles and content to Instablog readers. Instablogs’ readers can now rate posts and user-generated content on Instablogs and across other SezWho-enabled social media sites, including blogs, discussion forums, and bulletin boards.

The new features will be a welcome addition to SezWho users, and help the service define itself in a competitive space. The deal with Instablogs sees SezWho now powering a number of leading blog networks, including Creative Webloging.

Related posts:

1. SezWho Signs Deals with Entrecard, Creative Weblogging and Izea
2. SezWho lands b5media entertainment blogs
3. And then there was three: JS-Kit acquires SezWho

What makes a blogger different from a journalist, beside formal training? The biggest difference broadly speaking is that journalists write about what they’re told to write, bloggers blog about what they are interested in, or have knowledge of.

As blogging matures, the top of the blogosphere is blending into the mianstream, and the line between blog and traditional news provider is difficult to spot online. I was interested to learn recently from a number of people across several blogs, that their blogging revolved around topics dictated to them from above. It’s not strange in a traditional news room sense, but it’s something that hasn’t traditionally been seen with blogs.

I’ve acted in a number of roles in blogging over the years. I never had paid staff at The Blog Herald, only the occasional guest writer, so I never really had cause to exert editorial control. At Weblog Empire, I hired people who knew what they were writing about, and although I may have occasionally forwarded a story idea, or made a suggestion about tone or frequency, I never regularly dictated what they wrote about. Same at b5media, although that would have been impossible to micro-manage. As a writer at TechCrunch I can say that for all his faults, Michael Arrington gave me nearly complete reign to write about what ever I felt like. He may have occasionally forwarded story ideas, or suggested that I don’t write about a company, but 95% of the time I did as I pleased….well, as long as what I did delivered Techmeme headlines. With that background, I’ve adopted the same policy at The Inquisitr. I do forward some things on, and occasionally ask for posts to be written up, particularly where I can’t do them myself, and we do talk about focus around big stories on occasion as well. But that aside, the team here at The Inquisitr has free reign to do as they please in terms of picking content.

So then Scoble wrote this on a Google Reader share on one of Steven Hodson’s posts

“Oh, Duncan is now saying “there’s worse to come.” Fear monger! I get it, he’s playing both sides. He gets his new author to attack me for being too negative, then he goes negative himself. That way he gets both audiences: the folks who want just positive news reported, and the folks who want the hard truth. Heheh, brilliant strategy. Me? I’m going to Zig to this Zag.”

I could spend an entire post covering why he’s wrong about the negative/ positive stuff, but I’ve already dedicated a number of posts to the subject (this one was posted BEFORE he made this comment), and yes, we are fence sitting to a degree, but overall we’re going to try and be more positive because I believe that our mix is better suited to good news.

The issue I have is the highlighted section. I emailed Scoble two days ago saying that I was disappointed with his comments and explaining our editorial policy. He didn’t respond, so lets make this public.

Independent blog editorial policies rock.

I didn’t ask Steven to do a hit post on Scoble, and trust me, if I was going to go after Scoble, I wouldn’t delegate the task, I’d do it myself. When we announced Steven joining the team, I noted in that post that I wouldn’t always agree with what he wrote…but that was the strength in the hire. Most of the debate in that post seemed to be more centered around the comments, but maybe I misread it. Either way, Steven writes what he believes, and that’s pretty much the end of the story.

You see, when people work with me, I trust their ability to pick stories. In fact, it’s the key factor that influenced my hiring of our key writers. I mean this as no disrespect to our writing team, but not one of them was the best qualified for the positions they have in terms of writing history of the low three figures we got in applications. There were some amazing applicants, some who had worked in the mainstream media and on leading blogs and similar websites. Other sites have probably since snapped them up, and I’m sure many of them are doing very well. But a great resume and way with words doesn’t always come with the ability to pick stories, and the ability to provide comment on those stories. Our main writers won their positions because I believed in their ability to be independent, to pick great stories, to provide their unique take on them, and to do their own thing. I believed that I could in the most part take a hands off editorial approach with them (in part due to geography, because I’m not online until mid-afternoon US time), and although I may forward the odd email, or talk about things we can do better, or story focus on big news days, 95% of the time I never exert any influence on their writing. I most certainly do not order hit posts on people like Scoble. Again, if I was going to come after someone, I’d do it myself.

I mean this as no disrespect either to my many friends, and associates, who work for blogs where content is dictated from the top down, because I know many of them are capable bloggers who are more than able to pick good stories. But when you’re in a blogging position where stories are dictated to you, you become something close to a journalist than just a blogger. There’s some irony there in the years old are bloggers journalists debate, and likewise I’m not belittling journalists either. But there is that distinction.

Bloggers tend to be passionate about what they write. The best bloggers are often passionate bloggers, one thing I’m sure Scoble might agree with me on. If you’re picking the posts you’re writing every day, chances are that some, if not all of them will be tied into passionate blogging. If you’re writing about stuff dictated, there may be some crossover, but the chance of the topic and post not being passionate are greater than if you’d picked the topic yourself.

Scoble, I’m sorry you feel the need to play up victimhood at the drop of the hat. This year, despite our rocky start (the first thing you ever said to me in person when I met you was “do you have any startups in Australia”…I’ll let our Australian readers explain what’s wrong with that statement…considering you were with Chris Saad tonight ) I probably have gained more respect and understanding of you, and I very nearly included your shared items, and even your blog, as part of our mix on the front page with the new site. But if you’re going to cry like a little baby every time someone disagrees with you, and if you’re incapable of understanding that a multi-person blog has an independent editorial policy, and that there’s not a conspiracy from above to get you, you can get fucked. I’m not changing our editorial policy because you don’t like it. I believe in our bloggers on this site, and that respect includes faith in their ability to write what they please, even if I don’t always agree with it. I’d rather this then a team of bloggers who just churn stuff out. Passionate bloggers Scoble…remember?

Related posts:

1. Passion and the business case [blogging 101]
2. China gags Scoble but blogging still lives
3. Robert Scoble leaves Fast Company

The deal includes both the Outbrain rating widget and the content recommendation platform. b5media will join a growing number of publishers using Outbrain who take up the option of recommending external amd well as internal content via the Outbrain embed, delivering a best of recommendations from across the Outbrain network of participating sites.

The Outbrain widget also personalizes recommendations to individual readers as more people interact with the content.

Surprisingly we haven’t written about Outbrain recently, but the company has been in regular touch, particularly as it has rolled out its “trusted sources” recommendations network. Sites on the network include Mashable, VentureBeat, The Inquisitr and CenterNetworks, and more recently the Chicago Tribune. As much as it annoys me when people come in with 1 star ratings over and over again (I wish I could IP block ratings), the service has worked well for us, and the recommendations, although not driving a huge amount of traffic, offer a value add for readers by automatically offering relevant content at the end of each post.

disclosure: I am a founder of b5media, although I have no relationship with the company today

Related posts:

1. The Outbrain Challenge: How Social Are You?
2. SezWho lands b5media entertainment blogs
3. Outbrain raises $12 million Series B

b5media’s entertainment blogs have long been the backbone of the network in terms of traffic, delivering millions of pages views by targeting niche verticals, such as dedicating blogs to specific stars and shows as opposed to offering one central blog. The network recently launched Starked.com as a portal for the entertainment sites and branding exercise for the blogs.

For SezWho, the b5media deal follows similar deals with Entrecard, Creative Weblogging and Izea in July and continues the arms race of numbers in the space where the various competitors are seeking to become the default commenting 2.0 service by having the biggest install base. In terms of exposure, the deal will expose SezWho to potentially millions of new users, although I am surprised the deal didn’t extend to b5media’s full network; perhaps it’s a try before they fully buy deal.

Disclosure: I am a founder of b5media, although I have no relationship with the company today, nor did I discuss this post with anyone within b5media prior to publication.

Related posts:

1. Outbrain lands b5media blogs
2. SezWho Signs Deals with Entrecard, Creative Weblogging and Izea
3. SezWho announces enhanced features, new partnership with Instablogs

So you know you want to start a blog, and you’re know how easy it is to set one up of your own. It’s a start, but just blogging isn’t enough. I believe that I could argue a case 100% of the time for why every business or person should be blogging, but I now tell people outside the space that they should never blog just for the sake of blogging; ultimately you should only start a blog when you have clear goals on what you want to achieve. Having a goal and knowing where you want your blog to go applies equally to personal blogs and corporate/ business blogs, and without that goal, there’s a very strong chance that your blog will fail within 6 months. Then there’s the consideration of what to blog about. Anyone can write, but what topic(s) should you target so you can achieve your goals.

Goal setting

What do you hope to achieve in setting up a blog? Are you starting a blog for fun, a lark where you can rant and rave, or shares pics with friends? or are you hoping that your blog can achieve something, traffic, fame, money, publicity or any combination there in? No matter what the reason, you should always know up front what you want to achieve from having a blog. Goals can be anything you want them to be; it might be creating a presence on the web that is completely you. It might be using the blog as a support tool for something else. It might be establishing yourself as an expert in your field. Typically many will set statistical goals, such as Technorati rank or traffic. Related to this is income; you might wish to make $500 a month from your blog within 6 months to supplement your income, or you might want your blog to become a full time job. No matter what the goal, you absolutely must have one to have any chance of your new blog going the distance.

Finding your niche

One of the hardest challenges facing people looking to start blogs today is knowing what to blog about when everything has been done before. At the base level we have personal blogs where we share our thoughts on anything we care to write about (my personal blog is a good case in point). There’s a role there for personal blogs, and they can assist in building your online presence, and sharing with friends, but most personal blogs don’t go far unless they target a particular niche (my personal blog is again a case in point).

Business bloging is a little easier, because the topic will always be related to the business. But even in this space, focus and niche come into the mix.

The first step is to short list what you think you might be interested in blogging about. The obvious first entry on that list is going to be what ever field you know the most about. If you’re a PR professional that would be PR, if you’re a call center worker who collects fine china, it could be a blog about collecting china. If you’re knowledgeable about the topic, and are passionate about it, your chances of running a successful blog improve.

But sometimes the world doesn’t need yet another blog about startups, or gadgets, or celebrities. Competition can be fierce, and opportunities to enter the space slim. If your goal is to have a lot of traffic, and make good money, then sometimes you have to think outside the areas you’re naturally drawn to.

Spotting opportunities

Some internet marketers love spruiking lists of “high paying verticals” which they say you should target if you want top returns. It’s all very good in theory, but let me warn you now: there are thousands of mesothelioma blogs out there, and very few pay. Chances are every entry on that list has been bled to death by thousands and thousands of bloggers. The idea of a list isn’t a bad one, but you need to create one of your own.

Start with a list of things you think might work, they might be items you have a passing interest in, you think you will be able to write about, and areas where you’d like to learn more (sometimes writing a blog is a great way to learn about a topic). Then hit Technorati, Google Blog Search, BlogCatalog, Blogs.com and any other blog search/ directory services you can find and type in those words, visit the sites your find and make a list of the results. From that list, and from your observations, note which topics are being well served, which aren’t, and note any ways you think you can do better. With a good list and a little time, sure enough you will eventually identify opportunities, and you may find a topic to blog on. This may sound like a slow and long process, but I can’t preach the point enough: always do your research, even if you’re already sure about what you want to blog about. If you don’t know what’s out there, you don’t know who you will be competing against, or who might be able to help you along the way.

Small niches can be really nice

When I founded b5media with Darren Rowse and Jeremy Wright in 2005, we knew we didn’t have the capital to create a few huge blogs that could compete against the blogs coming out from Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc. We decided then that if we couldn’t own a space, we’d own the sub-spaces instead. For example, we couldn’t do a huge celebrity news blog, but we could create the biggest Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears blogs because the competition in each space was less than at the top. I don’t know whether b5media follows that path today, but while I was with the company, it grew to over 260 blogs and something like 6-7 million page views (possibly more) and went on to take $2 million in its first round of funding.

I’m not suggesting that you should go out and set up hundreds of blogs, and b5media had over 200 bloggers when I left and one of the biggest expenses was the accounting required to pay all the bloggers. But it does prove a point: you can specialize in a particular niche that isn’t at the top of the food chain and succeed. Rather than writing a web 2.0 blog, you could run a blog about Facebook, instead of a gadget blog, you could specialize in GPS units, or the Apple TV. The key is to find a small niche that works well for you, and offers competitive opportunities.

Conclusion

In some ways, we’ve gone from the simple (setting up your blog) to the difficult (niche and goals) and yet although it may sound a little hard, it really isn’t that difficult. We make decisions every day based on goals, and we regularly focus on niches based on personal likes. Should I take that new job because we can use the money to buy a car is a goal based decision, deciding whether to buy chocolate or free range chicken this week is picking a niche (although obviously sometimes you can have both). Goal setting and finding a niche is really just common sense, but sometimes people get caught up on the wonders of blogging without taking time to fall back to everyday decision making skills. Use this as your rough guide; it won’t deliver you millions, but following these steps will improve your chances of success.

Related posts:

1. Finding ideas, getting it right [Blogging 101]
2. The Blogging Dream
3. Passion and the business case [blogging 101]