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I saw this coming years ago and thankfully I made adjustments back then too.

If you watched my video on Conversion Blogging and the blog posts leading up to the release of the video, you know I was advocating a move away from the Page View Slave (PVS) model of blogging for money.

The PVS model relies on the raw number of page views you can deliver to advertisers in order to increase or maintain a level of income from blogging. Following the PVS model you set yourself up for hard work literally forever, plus you tend to put all your eggs in one basket, relying on traffic from Google to keep the page views up and in some cases, trading that traffic right back to Google in the form of AdSense click income.

Blog Networks In Turmoil

Today I had a chance, after supporting the new Blog Mastermind students and taking some time off, to catch up on the activities in the blogosphere.

One particular thread caught my attention, starting at Problogger with Darren’s short post on Talking Blog Networks, linking through to a post by Jeremy Wright, CEO of blog network b5media, on his feedback about the challenges of running a blog network and ending with Wendy Piersall’s thoughts on what the closure of a high profile blog network means to people in this industry.

I’ve never been a blog network owner per se, but I’ve owned multiple blogs and at one stage considered launching my own network after successfully branching into a second blog. Needless to say, I know the challenges you face coordinating bloggers, hiring good ones and monetizing the sites by selling the page views. It’s not easy for one person to do and I was stretching myself at times when trying to do it for just two blogs, so I can only imagine what Jeremy goes through at b5 with hundreds of blogs even with the support of a company team around him.

This is why years ago I decided to focus on long term asset creation and look for a means to get leveraged outcomes from what I do with blogs without wholly relying on the creative talents of other bloggers. I’ve never had intentions of trapping myself to a desk running a huge company as a busy CEO either, so I look for ways to keep things small, yet exponentially profitable, without giving up time and lifestyle freedoms.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made good money being in charge of blogs that I didn’t personally write to (leveraging other people’s talents, but always in a win-win relationship), but the job is taxing - people managing is always taxing. If that’s a role you are prepared to fulfill, perhaps for a short term period, you can make it work, just be aware of what you are signing yourself up to if you decide the blog network model is something you will pursue.

Is The Advertising Model Broken?

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I had dinner with Jeremy Wright, head honcho of the b5media blog network last week since we both happen to be in Toronto at the moment. Jeremy was in town on business and now the whole world knows what that business was about -

b5media Inc. have raised US$2 Million in venture funding to help grow the business into the future. That’s a fairly big stamp of approval for the blog network and (yet again) demonstrates the possibilities of blog networks as a successful Internet business model.

Congratulations to Darren, Duncan, Jeremy, Shai and the rest involved with b5.

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