Blog network launched

Shel Hotz reports on the launch of a blog network by blog veterans Jeremy Wright, Duncan Riley and Darren Rowse.

Conventional wisdom suggests only a handful of bloggers can make a living at the craft. Jeremy Wright and two colleagues apparently think otherwise. With the launch of b5media, Wright seems to be saying that compelling content can turn a buck. Along with Duncan Riley and Darren Rowse, Wright has opened the doors on their blogging network on August 30, paying their bloggers 40% of the revenue the blog earns through advertising. The network currently boasts 13 blogs, covering everything from cell phones and movies to to Microsoft and video games.

Portals offering a lot of good content were a tough business in the dotcom days. However, with blog feeds streaming into networks like this, you don’t have the challenge of building elaborate publishing systems, paying authors up front and coming up with consistent editorial guidelines. People expect each blogger to have their own style and their posts to be short and snappy. So blog networks are being discussed all around as a new business model.

I am not sure though unless you create a really big network that a network covering a myriad of topics as opposed to a network on one topic, such as fly fishing blogs, will work. Getting the traffic required to make a buck is tough going and Internet users can easily find blogs of their liking without going through a network. But Jason McCabe Calacanis at Weblogs Inc. appears to be having some success.