BizNicheMedia

Chartreuse, Scrivs, Scoble, 37 Signals and the Art of Namedropbaiting

I've been regularly reading Chartreuse since he started up his blog (which recently got a mention in the New York Times!) His blog is an interesting niche (or blend of several niches) -- blog networks, the future of advertising, media, content economic models, basically geek stuff (but not sexy geek stuff like gadgets).

As far as I can tell, Chartreuse is really good at two things, and really really sucks at one thing.

What Chartreuse is good at:

1. Spotting trends in media & marketing, and analyzing them in a non-idiotic way
2. Namedropbaiting: Approximately 1 in 3 post titles on his blog go like this: "Blogger guy's name, Other well known guy's name, and The Real Post Title Goes Here"

#2 is really quite ingenious for several reasons. First, it guarantees that Blogger guy comments at his post (usually). Which is cool because comments are the lifeblood at most blogs (I guess this one is dead then, har har, I digress)

But more importantly is the long term effect: You see, Blogger guy always assumes that Chartreuse is some sort of genius/authority, because Blogger guy knows he's a genius, and if Chartreuse knows that Blogger guy is important enough to post about, well then, Chartreuse must be 'in the know' too. So when Chartreuse posts something like "Haterati (Or The Importance Of Andy Hagans To This Blog)", my thought process goes like this: I'm cool, Chartreuse mentioned my name in a post title, Chartreuse must be cool too, Why don't I write a post about it and link him.

See? It's beatiful link bait / comment bait. I like it a lot better than other forms of link baiting which require a lot more effort. Chartreuse, maybe you have a future as my competitor.

Alright, Chartreuse, Scrivs, Scoble, 37 Signals, I'll await your links and comments.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I told you that Chartreuse really really sucks at one thing. He hosts all his blogs at Wordpress.com (slightly better than hosting at Blogspot, but c'mon dude, your content deserves a domain name). Oh well, no one's perfect.

p.s. tip of the hat to Copyblogger who parodied him first.

Blog Network Reading List

Well there are quite a few blogs about blogs, and most of them really, really suck. There are fewer blogs about blog networks (or that regularly touch on blog networks), and I actually think most of these are pretty interesting. In case anyone's wondering what my 'blog network blog' reading list is:

JOAB - Cowboy kind of annoys me because he seems to change plans, occupations and business models twice a week, but I respect his link baiting ability, and enjoy reading his "snarkiness" (God I hate that work).

Chartreuse - He's got some innovative ideas on advertising, most of which are bull shitake (like "innovative" ideas on advertising tend to be). But he's got such great analysis on the strategies of owning / producing / marketing / monetizing content, I wonder why the guy doesn't have his own network.

Blog Network Watch - Sort of a "must read" (based on the title), although 4 out 5 posts there seem to be blockquotes from blog network press releases. Yeah I enjoy it when BizNiche gets a link, but who cares if BlahNetwork.com just launched the Kitchen Spoon Gadget Blog with 2 posts on it? Yeah apparently they also get insider tips which is pretty sexy.

My constructively-meant criticisms aside, I obviously liked these blogs enough to bookmark them and post them.

So what else should I be reading?

BizNicheMedia Valued at Zero, Venture Capital Certain to Follow!

Version 2.0 of Blog Network List is out, and (aside from a few bugs) it's pretty cool. BizNicheMedia made respectable showings in the Total Technorati Rank and Size categories, but aside from that, our network was in the bottom half in most metrics (not surprising, since we're relatively new--in the content biz you generally start from the bottom and build up). One somewhat alarming fact is that our network was valued at $0.

So what do you think, Rich? Should we shut it down?

Of course, if you value a business as a multiple of revenues or earnings, we are worth nil... or even a negative number. Oh, and for the record, we don't want any venture capital--not that we could get any!