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Nov
28
OSM/PJM/WTF?
November 28, 2005 |
Anne Althouse is trying to grok PJs media again. Not much luck but lots of comments.
My sense is that there is a deeper probblem with PJ media - it is relying on a revenue model which has jumped the proverbial shark. Web advertising works a bit. The wee text ads will drive some traffic and, apparently, Vonage and the University of Phoenix have managed to create entire businesses using banner ads.
However, ad blindness and the unholy trinity of click fatigue (the phenomena where you really just can’t be bothered “checking out” the grooviness the ad offers), mercy clicking (ah, “x” needs a square meal I’ll just hit his ads and toss another nickle in his hat), and fraud (dear God, I need a square meal so I’ll just click this ad the one time…well, one, a hundred, who’s counting) have the capacity to destroy the text ad biz. Banner ads will always be with us but they too are limited.
The inherent contradiction is that the click through ad model requires you to leave the great content you are at a site to see. There has to be a better way.
One of Ann’s cemmentors points out that the most reasonable explaination of the lameness of PJM so far is that the launch, and I paraphrase, took the folks by surprise. This is not as crazy as it sounds. Most of the PJ media crew have day jobs. A lot of them are scattered around the country and the world. Herding those cats would not have been easy. Between meetings with the angel investors, some sort of site design, meetings with the moronic brand consultants, pitches to some ad agencies and just the general wear and tear of setting up a new biz, a launch date can sort of sneak up on a business.
And there is one other and rather contrarian consideration: the folks who were picked as the PJ media team had, to a greater or lesser degree, already made it. They are at the top of the rightish side of the blogosphere. Which means that none of them are particularily hungry.
Hunger fuels business as surely as launch parties. To really have a chance of making it in a wildly competitive business like new media the idea of an all nighter should not be unthinkable. The prospect of failure should have some consequence other than the amusement of the blogosphere.
Steve den Beste used to run a blogroll on the basis that he would leave five or six people up for several months. His theory was that with the exposure he gave those people they would - or would not - reach critical mass and become self-sustaining. It was both Darwinian and organic. The fittest survived; but they only survived because they had something to offer and were willing to slug it out day after day.
A serious re-think of PJ media would make sense; but what would make more sense is to put together a tiger team of largely unknown bloggers to drive the site. There are lots of smart, right, writers who would be happy to pick up $150 for a four hundred word post. I can think of half a dozen without trying. Around that core you build back to the bigger scheme. Oh, and lose the office. You don’t need it and you haven’t earned it.
Comments
1 Comment so far
$150 for 400 words? Where do I sign up? Over on this side of the pond I get $250 for a 1,500 word piece online and $50 for 400 words.
Know any VCs?