Are Blog Networks Failing?

Posted on February 22, 2007

Paul Scrivens at Wisdump has a post about why he thinks blog networks have failed.

Do you remember those things that we called Blog Networks? You might have paid attention or you might have went about your life like nothing changed and that's one of the reasons why they failed. 'Failed' might be a harsh term to use, but of the hundreds of blog networks that started in 2005 and 2006 which ones are thriving and by 'thriving' I don't mean staying above surface?
But why did they fail? Were they just cool because anyone could start one and it was a sweet buzzword to associate yourself with for a while? It is not that hard to understand why they didn't live up to the hype that they created for themselves.

Some of the leading blog networks have been shutting down some blogs. For example, Weblogs, Inc. recently shuttered AdJab -- a blog that had the kind of traffic and readership most publishers would covet. Gakwer shut down Sploid last year. That's another blog a lot of publishers would like to own. Today, Sploid just sits there waiting to be purchased.

But are blog networks themselves a failure? Hardly. Nearly every newspaper and magazine in the country is building one -- many of them are aggressively building blog networks. Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is blogging about Wired's blog network in a post today. Anderson even says, "we're having fun by launching new blogs right and left." Blog networks are not a failure. In fact it is a business model that the MSM is adopting as their own. Blog networks are facing increasing competition from magazine and newspaper blog networks but many of the networks that launch a year or two ago are still around today. To be fair Paul Scrivens did admit that failed "might be a harsh term to use."

Here is another point of view: One by One Media looks at the blog networks issue from a writers' standpoint and the possibility that maybe some writers are better off solo or as part of a blog network.