In any industry just like any sports, there are usually two set plays – get big OR get smaller.
Not one to play small ball and send on a team of point guards, b5media (home of fellow aussies problogger and shaicoggins – and until recently, duncanriley) continue their push towards advertising critical mass with the acquisition of Level9.
With Level9’s eight blogs topping up b5media’s 230 existing blogs, they pull in a reported 3 million uniques a month – funded by the 2 million they raised recently.
Certainly, the network effect of crosslinking between blogs of the same stable would assist in reinforcing and recycling existing traffic – similar to Seven’s ‘Better Homes & Garden’ magazine driving traffic to its TV series of the same name and downstream/cross-selling to its other shows in parallel markets (eg the renovation shows, lifestyle et al).
I’d love to pop the hood on their financials, they are obviously subsisting(?) on a combination of direct ads, adsense, textlinkads, auctionads and a variety of other networks but the publishing game is about getting a couple of winners in the crew. I would bet a portion of my heavily-mortgaged residence that problogger would represent the bulk of the traffic/uniques, and Darren would not give up a prize like that without demanding a bigger cut of the revenue pie. So what would that leave you as b5media?
Would you make up for the difference by:
– paying lower retainers/profit shares to other lower-ranked blogs in the network
– drive higher ad payout rates by selling direct
– negotiate better payout rates with (e.g.) Adsense on the back of your size
Compounding this would be keeping blogger attrition rates down (i.e. bloggers interested and blogging for b5media) whilst searching for the next blog equivalent of the iPod (and then hoping that you’ve locked in that blogger for at least a little while).
Thanks for the coverage on the Level9 acquisition. You’ve got some interesting thoughts on this. But, you might want to watch out about that bet – someone might take you up on it. 😉 Anyway, while Darren’s blogs do get a lot of traffic (and are definitely two of our flagships), we have a handful of other ‘big’ blogs that may not be as ‘well known’ but are still pulling in the numbers. $-wise, most of our bloggers have the same contract. But, people do get different payouts depending on longevity, numbers, etc.
Happy to do an interview to get you more background and info 🙂
Thanks for popping by, guys. Jeremy, mindful of the time difference between our two respective countries, I suggest we take an iterative approach on your kind offer of an interview. I’ll pop the first lot of questions in the email to you shortly. Then based on your responses, I’ll send a follow-up round of queries before publish in entirety on BuggerAll. Congrats on the continuing evolution of b5media and, again, appreciate the opportunity to stick my nose in your business.