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 For many years, I have been saying that Rafat Ali’s PaidContent.org (and the company, ContentNext) will be the first business-to-business media empire that started on a blog. I’ve cheered Rafat and PaidContent.org editor Staci Kramer for doing so many things right. First, they are great journalists. They develop sources. They break stories. They (and now others on their staff) work weekends and nights to have the story first and right. Their readers have grown to depend on them for being the go-to source on the business transactions and trends that fall in the blurring lines between emerging technology and traditional media. But they are also great bloggers as they have long done something that “old media” reporters and editors have been slow (if at all) to figure out: They serve their readers by guiding them to breaking stories wherever they appear.
Second, early on Rafat recognized that serving as the nexus of a then unrecognized business community was the key to building a brand — and a business. A “blog” served as the foundation of that brand in the way that a trade magazine would have served as the heart of such a brand in the past. I’ve had the privilege of being a fan in the bleachers cheering on as the PaidContent.org “brand” grew into what I thought it would be. I’ve attended mixers that ContentNext held in New York and in Northern Virginia. Both were not only well attended — jammed — they were filled with the crowd you’d want to show up if your brand was at the crossroads of the new kind of tech/media fusion “deals” taking place.
Today, in the first “conference” (see photos) organized by Rafat & Co. (including Jimmy Guterman, who helped program the event), the “brand value” of PaidContent.org was clearly on display. A mix of Hollywood and Silicon Valley and New York players were gathered together to dissect the economics of social media. It was the type of gathering where the people in the audience are as knowledgeable as the people on the panel, and everyone knows it. So, the panelists — and moderators — bounced it out to those in the audience if a question arose about a specific topic on which there’s some expertise under-roof that could be called upon. That seems natural for those of us who have participated in “bloggercon unconferences.” However, in a room with 500 people from every tech and media firm you can think of, it was a refreshing experience.
For example, if the topic of a Google acquisition came up, Rafat would call on a person in the audience who he knew was a part of the deal. The role “journalist as moderator” was on display. That happened in nearly ever session. The message was clear: The people who read PaidContent.org are the ones who matter in a fuzzy business category where Yahoo! and HBO and the Wall Street Journal all are doing deals that could potentially overlap.
Bottomline: PaidContent.org and the company ContentNext are heading to some impressive places. They’ve used blogging software and approaches, but their journalism and business model are time-tested and true. Great products. Great community. Content that matters — information and knowledge that is “mission-critical” to the people who depend on it.
I’m glad I knew them when…
Technorati Tags: b2b, blogging, media, paidcontent.org, econsm
 Tomorrow (Friday, April 27), whoever owns the URL Rex.com will be selling it for at least $395,000. There are plenty of potential buyers as several companies around the world have that name: an airlines, a healthcare company, a chain of appliance stores, a photo agency, bars, wine and another wine, hotels, lard, I could go on. I placed a $500 bid on it a few years ago, so I guess that’s why I received an email letting me know about the auction. I won’t be placing a bid as it is $394,500 over my budget.
Technorati Tags: brandrex
[econSM photoset on Flickr]
Topic: As broadband inches toward ubiquity and movie downloads are no longer limited to early adopters, the entrenched players are having to play catch-up. The DVD and cable release windows have become tremendously compressed over the past two years, and simultaneous releases are moving from experiment to accepted behavior. And then there’s this little site called YouTube that you might have heard of, which reminds some of the original Napster but invites others to look at a rich new market for Hollywood. Can Hollywood dictate mass taste anymore?
Panelists: Ilene Chaiken (The L Word), Alan Citron (TMZ), Carson Daly, David Eun (Google), and George Kliavkoff (NBC Universal). Moderator: Staci Kramer.
(Raw notes: not quotes.)
Eun: I’d like to see YouTube as more of a place where community can form.
Daly: What the hell am I doing here? I have a late night show on when all of you’re asleep when it airs.
Citron: We’re trying to create a conversation around the stories with the most heat.
Chaiken: Creator of show, The L-Word, “My second job is overseeing a website that was inspired by a character on the program — OurChart.com.” “A lesbian MySpace.” We’re interacting in a more active way with our fan base. Since the L Word is the only lesbian-themed show on TV, we have a very engaged fan-base. They are even helping write some episodes.
Kliavkoff: Building 360 screens: moving from TV to web to mobile…building affinity relationship. Don’t know of a particular show where “community” have “tipped the balance.” People who watch full-feed of show increases the rating.
Citron: (Asked about Alec Baldwin) There is a cycle that exists. We have a scoop. We add a poll to it. And then you can see a comment thread where someone sets a view, counter-views respond. Then the whole issue radiates out across the web. (How can you tell when someone is sharing your video?) When papparazi call and threaten us.
Daly: My show is on in the middle of the night. Social media is everything for us. We have to (w/ the little money we have) do everything we can to engage the viewers we have. We do it through music. We want our viewers to have a shared experience. I think most of the shows on TV have at their core, are a community.
Technorati Tags: social media
Topic: Never has there been a medium in which marketing and advertising could be so closely measured (or manipulated). Some advertisers are entering the world of social media on tiptoes, hoping to retain control in an era of no control; others are intent on jumping into the deep end to see what happens; many are looking for the right mix in between the two extremes. Whatever happens, one thing is for sure: You’ll never sell anything the same way again.
Panelists: Simon Assaad (Heavy), John Battelle (Federated Media), Shawn Gold (MySpace), Tina Sharkey (BabyCenter), and Rishad Tobaccowala (Denuo). Moderator: Jimmy Guterman.
(Rough notes follow)
Battelle: We are still using panel-based management on the Internet. Doesn’t work for niche audiences. It’s difficult to fix. As we get into conversational marketing, what we are going to measure is a different metric. How do you measure the value of a conversation with a customer who only purchases something once a year. We need experimentation. We have 20 people who travel around and have conversations with advertisers. You can’t write an algorithm that makes sense to everyone. Until they do, we have to have conversations with marketers.
Gold: (To what marketers can do) Brands need to extend “value propositions” to social networks (huh?) My Space allows people to express themselves…which can be used by marketers.
Sharkey: Must see TV on Thursday is never going to happen again. You must get involved in “after market” — The “ego (or is she saying eco?) system” is also important. Marketers need to tap into the network of their users…(Guterman: Is there a way to create “live” events online, i.e., like we do on TV.) At AOL (where Sharkey is from) we learned from Live Aid. AOL became an enabler — the interface — to allow users to see what they wanted to see. Not just what the announcer wanted us to see.
Assaad: If marketing had no control, there would be no marketing. “Facilitating” is what I call it. How do you get involved in someone’s “self-marketing.” I don’t believe “primetime” is dead. Top primetime show is bigger than all of video on YouTube. Our clients need to sell millions of things, not five. What are the incentives for marketers to get involved. This is really, really hard work. It doesn’t scale.
Technorati Tags: econsm, socia media
[See: econSM photo set on Flickr]
Topic: The state of social media with key executives at leading companies: all of them startups, but all of them around long enough to be maturing in enteresting ways. We’ll look into threat to traditional media from social media, how the traditional players are responding, how the two sides can work together — and how they’d better not. For some traditional ventures, social media is just the flavor of the month, a chance to put Web 2.0 buzzwords on the covers of their shrinking print publications. Others are taking the threat more seriously. What’s the best way to get to the new generation of media with your brand from the previous generation untarnished?
Panelists: Barak Berkowitz (Six Apart), Michael Birch (Bebo), Tariq Krim (NetVibes), Richard Rosenblatt (Demand Media), and Herb Scannell (Next New Networks). Moderator: Rafat Ali.
Scannell: Brands provide navigation for users and maturity for advertisers. “Hits” are no longer going to happen on TV, so brands are going to be what connect people — by their passion.
Rosenblatt: Social media for a lot of people, that are passionate on a topic, they don’t want to go to a social media that doesn’t exist. We want to acquire brands in the vertical and then build on that passion that already exists.
Tariq: Being a European company is beneficial: You have to be passionate enough to overcome the obstacles. Our success is also based on the diversity (of languages). The localized versions of the sites were built by people in those countries. Europe is a broadband market. (Answering: How do you make money?) The webpage is going to disappear. Now, we’re trying to build user base — long-term relationship. Any brand can now use NetVibes. So that a user can create an interaction w/ a company.
Birch: (About how to succeed in U.S.) We’re in six countries. (English speaking.) We’re big in UK — we just need people to have more children (laughter). We launched with a mature product. We’ve done a social network product for a long time. In U.S., within certain markets and certain spaces, we’re dominant. We are succeeding in the U.S. We’ve been playing catch-up. We have a critical mass we can grow from, and now we can start demonstrating what social networking can be and should be.
Berkowitz: (A platform or a social network business?) We wanted to provide products that meet the needs of different markets. Movable Type is used by people who want to operated it behind a firewall. Typepad is a consumer product. LiveJournal is a youth oriented product. Vox is aimed at an older market to let friends and family communicate with one-another. The way we make money in those markets is different depending on how customers want to use the tool. We learn from all of those customers using those tools. (How do blogging tools improve?) By becoming faster, understanding how people use them. Social communications is just in its emphasis.
Rosenblatt: We think registrars are out of favor. We think when people get a domain and then have the ability to set up their own social network — you have one location to manage them all.
Question: Can you build a business on using APIs from other companies? Answers: Yes and no.
Question: Are these services all built on a model that required customers to be online all the time? (Berkkowitz) The deep meaning is not on instant communication. The “stuff” (content, video photos) is stored where people can go back to it and interact with it later. (Krim) Connecting using these tools leads to connecting in real life. (It’s not just about what you do online.) Being offline and doing no
Technorati Tags: econsm
Heather, you know I am one of your biggest fans. When I talk about magazine writers who know how to use a blog with finesse, you are my go-to example. So please don’t take this personally. However, when you start playing with charts and graphs of Technorati data and start quoting Gartner analysts on your blog, I’m afraid you are using reporter-math to prop up an argument that the same data can disprove.
You write, “the data Sifry sent back seems to show that blogging growth is plateauing.” Actually, the data Sifry sent you doesn’t do that, but I’ll forgive you that “lede” as your post did include an admission that more data is necessary before drawing such a conclusion (although that’s buried in your post) and you did include (again, buried) the caveat there are others who suggest people may be “trying out other types of social media, including video, podcasts, and social networks” and that might effect the numbers.
I don’t have time now to explain my interpretation of the Technorati data, but will later, perhaps this weekend. However, in the meantime, I will point back to my three-year old post in which Paul Saffo explains macro-myopia. Secondly, the more important trend is “personal expression” platforms — not “blogging.” I could go on, but am walking into an all-day conference on, uh, the “economics of social media.”
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In the new book, How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, the co-authors detail the rise and fall of the magazine and argue that it was less a teenage moment than an early feminist movement.
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