March 28, 2004
blog millionaire
(Diet Coke & Lime website here)
As Bill Hobbs and I mentioned before, Blogads just signed their first big corporate account- Time Warner's Roadrunner high-speed internet service. I think the story is huge- I am genuinely surprised more people aren't talking about it.
As business models, the advantage Blogads has over say, Gawker Media or Weblogs Inc is lower overheads. It doesn't have to pay cash for original content (Gawker) or enter into deeply involved equity-sharing partnerships (WeblogsInc).
Basically, what Blogads does is so much simpler, easier and cheaper for all parties concerned.
I also think Blogads delivers the advertiser's message at a much deeper, diverse, non-mainstream level than any big website. This increases the effectiveness. Once Blogads' clients witness this effectiveness work on their own products, word will spread through the corporate world like wildfire.
Which is why I think Blogads is the most under-reported media story I've ever come across. Then again I'm not surprised- media journalists are paid to come up with stories that are "big & sexy". Gawker was big & sexy for a while, so the hacks typed away like dervishes. Blogads beginnings were more low-key. A harder story to pitch to an editor.
My prediction: Henry Copeland will be the first blog millionaire. You heard it here first.
Posted by hugh macleod at March 28, 2004 2:20 PMI was about to order 3.6 million dollars worth of blog cards, but now I don't want to prove you wrong.
Posted by: peter at March 28, 2004 7:56 PMEasier, cheaper, deeper... music to my ears.
Millionaire? That usually means selling shares to some big company (or the public) at some ridiculous price, and then having to pervert your business to meet their expectations of profit. I'd much rather spend the next 30 years running a small-to-moderate-size company and interacting with America's smartest and most entrepreneurial writers and advertisers.
Check a copy of "The Loyalty Effect" by William Reichheld -- an amazing analysis of why stable & smart investors are crucial for retaining the star customers and staff who make business fun and profitable.
Posted by: henry at March 29, 2004 12:56 PM