I have been taking great interest in Weblogs Inc recently. It’s pretty old news that AOL have bought them up for some absurd price, and the hype that they’re bringing in $1m/year from adsense hasn’t really impressed me, but the business model seems to have advantages over my own.
From my point of view, putting sites together from writers content has always been a big time consumer – and refreshing/adding to that content is an even bigger time consumer. Paying a blogger (or bloggers) to write (blog) a site frees up that time.
Fresh content – The content of blogs will always be fresh – for example, a blogger on a health site might blog about flu jabs in the winter, or hayfever medication in the summer. This HAS to add value, doesn’t it?
Interactivity – Improved visitor experience with use of comments (and replies of course). Community atmosphere = repeat visitors.
RSS, blog and ping – A lot of affiliate marketers still haven’t got a handle on this, and I am a little late to exploit it fully (and by exploit I don’t mean spammy rss2feed sites!). Exposure!!
There are advantages to being a Blogger rather than a Writer too.
It’s more fun – You are always writing about a topic that interests you.
No/little research required – It is your hobby/passion that you are writing about.
No deadlines – Blogging is a natural process rather than ‘I need 100 articles on
Expert status – Be known as an expert in your field! Potential to build a reputation as your personality comes through in your blog writing – every writer should have a blog in their portfolio – in fact, the blog could BE your portfolio.
Promo tool – As well as being a good base for self promotion, your blog could be a great promotional tool for your other related activities.