It’s Not the Size That Matters But Who’s Doing The Measuring Anyway?
A guest post by Mike Rundle at Business Logs takes 451 Press to task for … well, honestly I’m not sure. Not having enough writers for its many blogs? Not achieving PerezHilton.com-esque page views quickly enough for his taste?
See if you can figure it out.
He seems to be making some half-measure attempt to call 451 Press blogs low quality but you’ll note, he very carefully doesn’t actually come right out and say so. Instead we get linguistic gymnastics like this…
If I were running a publishing company with a traditional blog network model (pay writers to write for you, you own the sites and reap the ad revenue, rinse and repeat) I’m not so sure I’d be excited to brand my company the world’s largest. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a large cache of sites at your disposal, but isn’t it easy to add more sites? … But what about quality? … Starting and getting something going is not complicated, but continuing the upward trend and moving it higher is hard. Maybe that’s why it took 451 Press 300 blogs to make it to 10 million visitors per month … b5media is another traditional-type blog network, but they rank higher on the quality scale than 451 Press does because they’ve stopped adding “blogs every week? like 451 Press but seem to be working harder on the quality end of the spectrum instead of just increasing girth on the quantity end.
Am I crazy or did he just call us bad bloggers simply because there are a lot of us?
Yes, I know he’s trying (however inartfully) to draw a distinction between number of blogs (which is relatively easy to manipulate, I concede) and quality. But there’s no correlation here - at least none that holds water. Simply because there are many 451 Press blogs, this guy would have you believe they must be bad. Or, at least, not as good (as b5? Please.) That’s … well - absurd.
My fellow 451Press writers and I work hard, and we do it because we want to see these blogs do well. If we were in it for the money, I can assure you, we’d be long gone. And yes, some of us (former 451 blogger in the comments, maybe?) do cut and run when the paycheck isn’t what they dreamed of. Who knows - perhaps they’re just not committed to doing the work necessary to make their blog successful. I don’t pretend to know.
But here’s the thing - neither does Mike Rundle.
So howl away, naysayers, at the news that 451 Press is the largest network. We’ll just keep plugging away, doing our bloggy thing - you know, offering value to our readers, posting away, building traffic … that kind of stuff.
Technorati Tags: 451 press network
August 8th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Exactly. Just because there is quantity does not mean there’s not quality. I know the 451 Press writers very well and can spout of at least 20, no even including celebrity or tv topics, that I read regularly because they are GOOD. And interesting. And informative.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Exactly, Kim. I should have said “those of us who are SOLELY in it for the money ….” because the pay is in many cases decent, and it’s growing, proportionately to the effort we all put in. Posts like the one quoted do a real disservice to some of my favorite bloggers.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Nice post Sheryl … and it’s good quality! Imagine that, a 451 blog with a well-written quality post. Humdinger!
August 8th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
HERE HERE! Not only has my writing improved from 451, but I met some great connections for my work, some great friends, AND I get paid.
Yeah - I hate 451 totally….
August 8th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Yes, Rundle has a lot to say, but I’m curious to know exactly how much traffic his writing gets, at what expense. 451 was simply promoting their growth. That’s all there was to it. It wasn’t even a plea for attention to high quality growth - it was simply an announcement of owning the largest network, world-wide. I think a number of domain owners would brag about that!
August 8th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Every blog network is going to have lower quality blogs. I could name at least 2 off the top of my head for every single blog network out there (including 451press). We are not alone in this, and to insinuate the network as a whole is low quality is just absurd.
And yes, Perez Hilton does get a lot of hits and a lot of money, but he’s not only a marketing genius (he got a show at VH1, for goodness sake), he’s been blogging for more than 3 years! 451Press has been in existence for less than a year. I’d say 10,000,000 hits within that time is pretty darn good.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:14 am
And, from what I’ve seen, Perez Hilton is far from quality writing. Even his doodles are elementary!
August 9th, 2007 at 10:07 am
But….Perez Hilton gets to keep all of his advertising revenue.
Perez Hilton isn’t buying up domain after domain and having others run his website while keeping most of the profits himself. There’s a difference between Perez Hilton and all of the blogs on the 451Press network. Apples and oranges. He owns his own blog, finds his own information and reaps 100% of the rewards. Plus he has more high end advertisers.
The bottom line is this: whether you like it or not, 451Press isn’t a name that’s associated with quality. That’s not bitterness, that’s the truth. Mention 451Press at a bloggers convention and everyone will have a good chortle.
So rather than have contests and run to all the other blogs and talk about how much money you make, you should start a campaign to educate and enlighten. Show people why you’re the best instead of displaying your ignorance (comparing 451Press to Perez Hilton, for example.). Speaking of, Mike Rundle’s blog has a PR of 6 and gets more traffic in one day than most of the 451Press blogs will probably see in a life time.
Visit the other networks and see what makes them so successful. Why isn’t anyone laughing at them? Stop having contests and stop buying domains and pay the writers more money. Then you can talk about quality.
Melissa
August 9th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Here we go again.
OK - so, by this logic, an author who self-publishes is of better quality than one who’s signed by Random House.
Since I’m pretty sure that’s not accurate - at least generally speaking, and without specifics that’s all we can do - I can safely say I don’t agree with you.
So I have to ask: who cares?! Who cares what the revenue model is here? I think there’s a prejudice at work here that’s not being discussed openly - namely, if you sign up with a network like 451 Press instead of doing it all yourself, then there MUST be something lacking in you as a writer or a blogger.
That’s so obviously crap I feel no need to comment further. (Except to ask - if we’re all such crap bloggers, why do readers keep coming back?)
August 10th, 2007 at 9:23 am
“Visit the other networks and see what makes them so successful. Why isn’t anyone laughing at them?”
Because they aren’t the biggest?
This whole thing is silly. 451 Press made a huge achievement by becoming the largest network. That’s no reason to hate.
The rapid growth may have left some blogs without writers and some that may be low quality, but that does not mean there are not tons of awesome blogs on 451 Press. In fact, since we have so many blogs, overall we probably have more quality ones than any network as well!
August 10th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I joined 451Press at Teacher Smackdown knowing full well that Steve was going to build this network to 451 blogs. It was a clever hook and a worthy goal.
I also joined knowing that it was a good network that would quickly get me the traffic I wanted. I could not have done that on my own.
Will I ever be one of the top traffic ranked blogs here at 451Press. I doubt it. But I’m getting more readers - and more attention from the mainstream press and probloggers for my blogging efforts - than I would have if I did this on my own. Plus I have a crack staff of techie people an email away. Something I certaily don’t have with my own blogs.
No I don’t get paid much, but I would probably make even less doing this on my own. As this network grows, Steve will get be able to charge advertisers more money. This means the writers will be making more as well.
Until then, I’m just happy to network with a bunch of great bloggers, work on providing readers with great content, and giving those naughty teachers a daily smackdown.
Thanks Sheryl for blogging about this. I’m tired of hearing from a few disastified ex-451Press bloggers who thought they’d be making six figures with only one blog, and only working a few hours a day. As we know, it takes time, networking, providing good content, and more than full time work to be making those numbers.
August 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Nice post Sheryl, and you’ve put us 451Press bloggers side of the story across nicely.
But, as committed as I am to the network, I do think being able to offer the writers more money would help. It would stop writers leaving as they do, and coax established writers in to joining the network.
It’s not all about money, but it’s a big motivation for blogging day in, day out without a break.
August 16th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
I found this about 451 Press at Writer’s Weekly
http://www.writerswell.org/?p=55