US entrepreneurs have had notable success with Blog publishing startups, in particular Jason Calacanis (Weblogs Inc sold to AOL for $25m) and more recently Rafat Ali (Paid Content sold to The Guardian for $30m). Ashley Norris, former co-founder of early UK blog network Shiny Media, left the company last week to create another startup – but there is no multi-million sale yet in sight for Shiny. In this guest post for TechCrunch UK he makes his first public statements on the matter, he rails against the BBC, VCs, ad agencies and pores over why he thinks Blog publishing has had only limited success in the UK. Did Shiny ‘cut the mustard’ or were wider factors at work? You decide.
The last five years have seen an explosion in the number of independent commercial blogs, blog networks and websites in the US. The Huffington Post, Sugar Publishing, Perez Hilton, Gawker Media, Engadget - the list goes on forever, and they are just the Web 2.0 premiership. There are thousands of individuals running less high profile blogs and websites who are making a significant living from their work.
In the UK it is a depressingly different story. I have spent the last five years of my life developing Shiny Media, the largest and most successful UK blog network. When I left the company at the end of August it could boast that over four million people each month were either reading or viewing its content. Shiny Media is however one of a handful of independent UK content companies to attract more than a couple of million monthly readers to its sites. There are some amazing blogs and sites out there, Hecklerspray, Anorak, The Spoiler, Coolest Gadgets, Unreality TV and Pocket-Lint spring to mind, but of those only one can claim more than a million monthly readers.
There have been several attempts to develop a UK based blog network (Mink Media, Blog Nation and Messy Media are the most high profile) but many have crashed just months after their launch.
When I first started seeking investment for Shiny back in 2005 I was constantly told I was wasting my time and that the business would never be worth more than a couple of hundred thousand pounds. Ok, so content was rather unfashionable with VCs back then, and what they told me only served to strengthen my resolve to make Shiny successful, but in retrospect I do think that many of the VCs had quite an accurate take on the difficulties facing any developing independent media companies in the UK.
So three years and lot of water under the bridge later here is my take on why I think the US explosion of new media companies hasn’t been repeated over here.
1 Limited number of UK online eyeballs – The obvious reason why UK new media companies haven’t achieved the same success as their US counterparts is down to economies of scale. US sites have at least five times more readers to aim at and that counts for an awful lot when most online advertising is still based around a CPM model (advertisers pay a between 50p-£20 depending on the campaign per thousand people who see their ad). What makes it even trickier is that most UK advertisers for obvious reasons only want their ads to be seen by UK readers. For most UK blogs and established websites Britons count for between 30-50% of their readership, the rest is from the US and other English language speaking countries. It is possible to monetise non-UK ad inventory but it is generally at much lower rates than the UK inventory. The difficulty for most UK blogs and websites is that they simply don’t have enough UK readers to interest ad agencies and brands, so they are left to monetise even their UK traffic using ads that have very low CPMs.
Perhaps an obvious tactic is to forget about the UK completely. Maybe there is something in the fact that two of the five best read blogs to emanate from the UK – Mashable and Coolest Gadgets – are focussed on a worldwide (in the main, US) audience.
2 Lack of imagination in the ad industry – Shiny has been very successful at attracting blue chip brand advertising (Marks and Spencer, Nokia, Dyson, BMW are among the high profile brands who have advertised on its sites). However it has been a long and slow process convincing agencies and brands to advertise on blogs. In reality it should be simple. The readers of the bigger British blogs (if Shiny and other groups like Glam are to be believed) tend to be young, affluent, educated and spend much more time online than they do imbibing other media. However many brands and their agency planers have chosen to play it safe and will work with established media brands or mega portals like MSN, even when the ads themselves will be seen by a less focussed and often an inappropriate audience. There are signs that this is changing, but the lack of brand advertising on sites like Hecklerspray and Unreality TV really is baffling.
3 Lack of UK media entrepreneurs – As someone who wasn’t involved in a start up in the first web boom largely because I spent all my working hours writing about it for magazines and newspapers, I can understand why there are so few media entrepreneurs in the UK. Many of the smarter journalists are way too busy to develop their own start up and there are very few entrepreneurs outside the media who have the capacity to develop media properties. Ironically many of the most successful, blogs and websites in the UK have been developed by freelance journalists who have worked on their sites in addition to writing for others, and in many instances rival media. This is ideal for slowly building an audience, but the emphasis is on the word slowly.
4 Lack of VC support – As a rule European VCs don’t tend to be too interested in media unless it is supported by a technological innovation. Other than Shiny I can’t think of a single online editorially based media play in the UK that has attracted any sizable investment in the last few years. Before Shiny it was Magicalia Publishing and that was many years ago.
Conversely organisations like Next New Networks , the closest US equivalent of Shiny, has several VCs on its board and has so far attracted over $23m in funding. Established US media has also worked with independent new media companies too. NBC has equity in Sugar Publishing, another Shiny rival, while The Discovery Channel acquired Treehugger the leading green blog.
5 Too much competition – Several commentators have suggested that the explosion in successful blogs occurred largely because Americans distrust established media and see it as being in the pockets of big business. I can’t really comment on the US, but I do know that this isn’t the case in the UK. On the surface Britons appear to be fairly loyal to their newspaper and magazine brands. There have been many examples of offline brands that have been a disaster when launched online, but there are some significant successes now too. Existing media companies have much larger budgets than independents and are now starting a serious land grab in building up their online properties. Just check how often you see a UK media company using a Google Adword. However the independents have in many instances a first mover advantage and often a keener understanding of how to work the web to market a site which has kept them one step ahead of big brands.
6 The omnipotent BBC – At the risk of sounding like a stuck record the existence of the BBC and its hugely impressive range of online services does make life even more tricky for the independents. Going back to point one there is only a certain number of UK web surfers and as the BBC hoovers up a large percentage of them the slice of the cake for the independents is even smaller. Secondly, the BBC’s reluctance to link to British blogs and smaller independent media organisations, while at the same time endlessly plugging established media groups (Five Live is one long plug for mainstream media brands) makes life even more difficult.
On a very basic level, if the BBC didn’t have its huge online football offering, then it is very likely that Shiny’s footy blog, whoateallthepies.tv, which is one of the most read football blogs in the world, would be significantly larger. What is even more galling for the founders of Shiny and other indie media groups is that they personally pay a small amount in the guise of the licence fee to fund what in reality are rival sites.
Were the BBC to take a more enlightened view of British independent and social media it could do a lot to encourage young talent to develop UK media properties thereby greatly enriching British media.
Conclusion
On the surface this probably reads like a fairly negative post. It isn’t meant to be.
I do think that British independent new media companies can develop businesses, Shiny is proof of that as are Trusted Reviews, The Register and Digital Spy, but they have to be so much smarter and work so much harder than their rivals in mainstream media. I think online video will provide an opportunity for UK companies to compete on a worldwide stage, however they will need access to fairly sizable funds to do this.
Finally it is worth adding that the economic downturn might actually provide some interesting opportunities for UK bloggers. Several of the most successful indie websites date from around 2002/2003, a time when mainstream media was pulling out of the web after the dot com crash. It is possible that 2009 will go down as the year in which the third wave of indie media started gaining momentum. Here’s hoping.
The only Shiny blog I subscribe to is TechDigest – and only just in case it has something that isn’t on Gizmodo (US or UK), Engadget or CrunchGear. The content of Tech Digest just isn’t at the same level. For a while I subscribed to their football blog Who Ate All The Pies and their Liverpool FC one Liverpool Pies, but not for very long – the content really was pathetic, and the opinions offered were of the sort of standard you might here over a few beers in the pub. Whatever disadvantages UK blogs face, the lack of quality at Shiny can’t be helping them.
Hi Ashley,
You failed to mention in your article that the Shiny blogs had more flash based advertising than any other blog network that I view. In fact, most of the comments I have encounted relating to the Shiny blogs were to this effect.
The flash based advertising (up to 7 animated flash adverts on a single page) not only made the blogs unpleasing to look at but they also bloated the sites so much that it pretty much made them unusable (both speed wise and page load wise). Add to this, the RSS feeds which have adverts on most of the posts along with mediafed links which are down quite a bit of the time, and you are starting to see a recipe for disaster.
Shiny used to be amazing, in fact, the best quality blogs I read… however they lost their way when they moved from the mantra of “content is of upmost importance” to “how much advertising revenue can we make”, and with this, they lost their loyal readership.
Andrew
Good to read this on a blog.
never read a shiny blog … just tried whoateallthepies.tv …rubblish, the layout presentation and most importantly the content.
As the owner of Pocket-lint I think one of the biggest problems I’ve had over the past 5 years is getting PR companies to change their attitudes into understanding that the internet is just as good a place to be seen as magazines and newspapers.
What makes this frustrating is that for the most part I have a bigger readership than all the magazines in the UK in my sector and most of their websites, yet the “Play it safe” mentality normally prevails.
The attitudes are changing with a good majority of agencies waking up to the fact that just because we don’t have an office doesn’t mean we aren’t a professional outfit. But there is not a week that goes by where I don’t have to question a PR company as to why they’ve decided that it wasn’t a good idea to talk to us first. The normal response? “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
Until companies start to take independent publishers like myself seriously and not just think Blogging is yet another buzz word to throw into a presentation I feel that the situation is unlikely to change any time soon.
Content is the thing, and shiny doesn’t have it. I read over 250 feeds, none of them are part of Shiny. Sorry, but their content just isn’t very compelling.
He’s complaining that if the BBC didn’t publish better content for free then his ad-supported content would get pageviews. Doesn’t that mean he should make better content? After all people still watch ITV because it has different (better?) content than the BBC, maybe Shiny should take a leaf out of their book?
I have only come across shiny when looking at incoming links to one of our sites – they reprinted a press release we did – verbatim. I went to look at the sites and thought they must be part of a spam network and were gaming google in some clever way because the site was full of adverts and what looked like spam.
I was a fan of Shiny blogs, until the horrendous flash advertising overload started crashing my browser half the time. Now I avoid all Shiny blogs as I simply can’t be bothered to wait for all the advertising to load before I can read two brief sentences of news.
I used to read TechDigest but stopped over a year ago. I’d posted a comment containing a correction to a review and went back a couple of hours later to find the review updated and my comment removed. Comments deserve more respect than that so I never went back.
I agree with a lot of the points that Stuart makes. But just to set the record straight that Shiny was never set up to capitalise on the buzz around ‘blogging’, it just happened to use a blogging platform/ethos to deliver high quality content because we thought it was an effective means of reaching our audience – and so it proved. I strongly refute the suggestion that our content isn’t as good as it used to be. In fact I think it is much better than when we couldn’t afford to pay/train decent quality writers. We now have 10 full time journalists and around 40 freelances who are all highly skilled at writing and, increasingly, presenting to camera. Regarding design, I think there is sadly always a trade off between the user experience (ie the reader) and the commercial reality. We don’t have the luxury of the BBC in supporting endless amounts of content at the tax payer’s expense. As a blog network we face issues around having a high number of uniques but lower page impressions per unique which means that we have to put quite a few ads on the page. Over time, as the market matures and advertisers realise the value/size of our audience I think we will see the number of ads per page fall and the user experience improve. Finally, just to make it clear that blog publishing hasn’t failed as your headline states. Shiny continues to go from strength, both in terms of traffic and revenue which have grown substantially in the last 12 months since taking investment from Bright Station Ventures. Chris Price, MD, Shiny Media
In reply to Stuart, who claims “just because we don’t have an office doesn’t mean we aren’t a professional outfit. But there is not a week that goes by where I don’t have to question a PR company as to why they’ve decided that it wasn’t a good idea to talk to us first. ”
Perhaps it has something to do with the constant breaking of embargoes, lack of outgoing links to the real source, and blatant plagiarism undertaken by your writers (from both press releases, and other sites)?
To wit, here’s a post on Pocket-Lint – http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/16266/17290/O2-MMS-text-photo-controversy.phtml
And a post on PC Pro, which Pocket-Lint linked to as a source (for once) – http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/213597/o2-plugs-mms-picture-leak.html
Now, have a look at the mirrored phrases -
Pocketlint – ‘after it was revealed that photos sent by MMS can be found using just a simple Google search’
PC Pro – ‘after it was revealed that photos sent by MMS could be found with a simple Google search.’
Pocketlint – ‘images can be accessed using a simple InURL search on Google.’
PC Pro – ‘library of photos could be accessed using a simple InURL search on Google.’
Pocketlint – ‘The problem was highlighted on dozens of blogs, news websites and even O2 messageboards over the weekend.’
PC Pro – ‘The problem was highlighted on dozens of blogs, news websites and even O2 messageboards over the weekend.’
Pocketlint – ‘O2 eventually decided to take the nuclear option and take down the website viewing service.’
PC Pro – ‘O2 eventually decided to take the nuclear option and take down the website viewing service’
Pocketlint – ‘Now anyone attempting to view the leaked images is met with an Apache server error message.’
PC Pro – ‘Now anyone attempting to view the leaked images is met with an Apache server error message.’
Are you telling me that this is the way to gain the respect you believe blogging, or indeed online publishing deserves, Stuart? The amount of conversations I, along with other journalists, have had with PRs about your publication make it clear to me that the reason you’re not getting “taken seriously” is because you’re breaking all the rules, and giving blogs and online publications a bad name.
Disclaimer: I used to work at Shiny Media until two months ago when I moved to T3.com, and Pocket-Lint is one of my online rivals for traffic.
Another problem is that you are competing against high quality US content. About 75 per cent of the sites in my news reader are from the US or international publishers rather than the UK.
All readers aren’t created equal, a well defined high value demographic that has smaller overall unique users would represent a good proposition to marketers, particularly on PPC adverts. Its no use having a million readers if they are all part of the nations underclass and would only appeal to JD Sports, debt consolidation companies and lawyers specialising in legal aid.
I used to read Catwalk Queen and ShinyShiny (which used to be my favourite) and even Hippy SHopper…I liked them when they first started. Then the advertising got to be too much. The content seemed like regurgitated press releases. It didn’t seem fun anymore. It was a great idea and a couple of years ago it was really cool.
Why don’t you guys care more about your design and your content? Where is the creativity? I am just really disapointed now with them. I’d rather read Sugar even tho they barely have any UK sites.
Point 6 is absolutely true. The BBC continues to hamper innovation in the startup world.
I do think there’s a lack of appreciation and experience amongst most PRs when it comes to online, not just the new way in which we converse with the consumer. Note that I didn’t say ‘all’ of them. Clearly there are some PRs who are good at what they do, but like old media, there’s a massive lag and it’s time they caught up.
Katie who is the Editorial Director from Shiny has asked me provide the verbatim PR post – which I can’t do. Upon checking up as I should have done before making the comment – the actual post was not verbatim.
The verbatim issues came in that the same post was then posted on 4 or 5 different blogs verbatim – this is what made me think it was a spam network of some sort.
Sorry for accusing Shiny of verbatim posting press releases – that was not at all true.
The design/ads/usability is the major drawback. Looking at the way any shiny site is put together, its clear that they don’t have a clue about online media. It seems from Ashley’s comments that they were trying to align themselves too much with mainstream media, but at the end of the day you’re a website, nothing more. They need to pay the same attention that the rest of the industry pays to areas such as usability, user loyalty, SEO, accessibility, ad placement, market research. New media in the uk has never been stronger and its one of the only industries that hasn’t been hit by the recession.
Chris, as for the ads, “having a high number of uniques but lower page impressions per unique” this isn’t common to blogs, this is common to sites that don’t work, caused because the users hitting one page then leaving without venturing past the initial landing page. Less ads would lead to more impressions, more loyalty, which would lead to more overall banner impressions, its a clear case of chicken before egg.
Bottom line, the issues are not industry related, these issues are limited to a company that doesn’t have a clearly defined strategy trying to survive in an industry that it doesn’t understand.
I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt (of not trolling) because everyone is entitled to their personal preferences about what constitutes good content etc., but here are my thoughts on “Let’s Bash Shiny” Day
@Paddy: TechDigest can’t be all that bad all the time because we do get pickups *from* some of the sites you read – guess that’s when they “miss” things eh?
@Al: The concrete example, rather than a blanket statement about verbatim press release copied from “one of your sites” when Shiny Media publishes thousands of articles each month, would be useful. I’m sure it has happened. If it doesn’t compel you, that’s fine, we can’t cater to everyone.
@Becca: I take some offence (though not much, as I have better things to spend my energy on) at being labelled as someone who “regurgitates press releases’. (compare: Katherine’s comment). For your information, I spend a significant proportion of each day writing articles. Yes, a number of them are based on press releases (show me any journalist who doesn’t use them) but I do inject commentary, opinion, and context. Maybe not for everyone, but I have connections who are happy to read and interact with Shiny blogs.
@Dave Nicholls: Again, one example does not a rule make. We work very hard to engage with those leaving comments, as it’s (IMO) an important part of any blog. If you felt you weren’t treated with respect, then I’m sorry. I hope it was more an oversight than an intentional desire to offend.
Disclaimer: I am a freelancer writing for three of Shiny Media’s technology blogs.
It’s an interesting and slightly disappointing post from Stuart. I don’t whole heartedly disagree either, but having worked in PR himself he should know better the workings of a PR agency and the daily struggle they have mediating between in-house people who want one thing, and are under a lot of internal pressure, and people like himself who expect another.
People love to see their name, company and product in print and it’s only recently, despite banging on for what feels like my entire career, that companies appreciate the reach of online media – and this has only really been highlighted through their use of SEO. Sad but true. So I wouldn’t beat the agency up too much here, you’d be surprised how much goes on behind the scenes that you’re not exposed to, fighting the corner of the online publication (be that blog or otherwise). Although if you’ve ever worked in PR it shouldn’t come as such a surprise.
@Al: your second comment came in as I was posting my long retort. Pleased that’s cleared up.
Additional disclaimer: These are my thoughts as someone working with the company, and not necessarily the viewpoints of the Directors of Shiny Media.
The impression this piece gives is that we set Shiny Media up purely as a company that we wanted to flog to the highest bidder as soon as we possibly could. That certainly wasn’t my motivation – I wanted to create online magazines that were funny, well-writen, interesting and a world away from women’s magazines (and some other print media). I think we’ve achieved that (and I’m sorry that not all the commenters feel the same) and created a great portfolio of really great sites.
I know it makes for a better story, but the headline and intro you’ve tacked onto this piece is depressingly British. Three journalists set up their own publishing company with no initial investment, attrack Blue Chip advertising and investment, become respected in the industry (we haven’t had a problem being taken seriously by PRs for a while now, but it took time and patience) and continue to go from strength to strength, and yet somehow we’re a failure?
@Al: We never copy and paste in press releases – unless there’s a good reason for it (eg to highlight how ridiculous they are) – and I’ve contacted you in the hopes that he’ll direct me to the post so I can address it.
@Dave Nicholls We also usually respond to commenters (unless the comment is rude or aggressive in tone) and I’m sorry if that didn’t happen this time.
Sadly for Shiny, content is still king. The content got worse as the ads proliferated. Also, there is always an 800 lb Gorilla in a sector, whether its Google, Microsoft, or the BBC. C’est la vie. And they are all offset funding themselves in the digital media sector, so there’s no real difference in BBC’s status.
However, to the bigger issues – there is truth in the points that US outfits are being funded/bought and UK ones are not, and that Ad agencies are being very cautious. Thus, even if one was a “Better than Shiny” its not clear their fate would be much different.
Thanks for that Ashley, very interesting to read of your experiences.
An area that I’ve seen few blogs, big or small, investigate is alternative income streams such as affiliates – and I don’t just mean the odd banner ad.
I’ve been dipping my toe into it myself, but it is interesting to think that most successful affiliates struggle to create content, whilst most content creators struggle to draw in any income.
Maybe the two need to talk together more.
@Al, thanks for clearing that up and sorry that I took so long writing my reply that I didn’t see your second post until after I’d hit publish.
@Becca, if you’d rather read Sugar sites then I guess there’s not much I can do to fix that – the Sugar team are brilliant, but their writing style is totally different to ours. They talk about their boyfriends a lot, use lots of exclamation marks and are generally more (to steal a Japanese word) “genki” than we are.
Katherine,
Not wanting to turn this into a public slagging match, but not sure where you are getting your claims of blantant plagiarism, lack of outgoing links and constantly breaking embargo claims from.
Pocket-lint is staffed by professional journalists and is highly respected in the industy. We always credit our soruces, we never break embargoes and pride outselves on being one of the largest tech blogs in the UK bringing our readers fair and honest news daily.
If you want to discuss your issues with pocket-lint over a beer give me a shout.
Stuart
@Katie Lee – On reflection I have moderated the headline and intro to better reflect the tone of this piece. It seems to me that whatever anyone thinks about Shiny specifically, that fact is that they had an extremely good run at trying to create the kind of blog network that, had it been in the US, might have lead to it being bought by a major media owner. The reasons why this business did not create a large “exit” for its founders is worth discussing and I think Ashley makes some very interesting points, hence the piece. It’s also worth noting that the tone of the piece is not at all bitter – it’s a genuine attempt to look at the whole subject. It’s for others to decide if Shiny’s efforts were up to par or not, but frankly, no-one else has had such a long run at creating a pure, UK-specific blog network along the lines of Weblogs Inc / Gawker, and how that model worked (or didn’t) in the UK is fascinating.
Iain, It is clear we understand about online media! How can you produce an online network that has millions of unique users and not understand it. Honestly, that is some insult. The issue that we have with the blogging platform is the one that is faced by all other blog publishing networks worldwide. And that is because the linear nature of a blog people typically read seven to 10 stories on the home page, then click through and read the next seven to 10 stories. So they could read up to 20 stories and still only count as two page impressions. This is simply a fact. Until advertisers move away from buying on a page impression (CPM) basis, and understand the opportunities of a huge uniques base, these challenges will remain.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
Disclaimer: I am a PR and I take you all very seriously
I’m not really surprised at the lack of unique hits to page impressions, as some of the other commentors have already said lots of flash is a quick way to lose readers fast. It sounds to me like the site designers need to visit ProBlogger to get a few tips.
I do agree that focusing on a solely UK market is a flaw for Shiny Media’s growth strategy as it limits their scope hugely. I wonder if they will focus on a wider audience in the future.
So where to next… well point 6 is very poignient and I have to agree the Beeb doesn’t link out much and even then generally to a limited few bloggers. The question really there for me is what stops them from linking out to other online resources? Is it the lack of integrity of online resources or is there company policy getting in the way.
It will be interesting to see where the conversation moves to on this topic.
@Dave Nicholls
“I’d posted a comment containing a correction to a review and went back a couple of hours later to find the review updated and my comment removed. Comments deserve more respect than that so I never went back.”
I’m extremely sorry to hear that because I think I was doing a lot of the reviews at the time you mentioned. Deleting comments, especially correct and helpful ones, is something that I definitely would not do and is certainly not in Shiny’s policy. It probably doesn’t make a lot of difference now, but sorry all the same.
@ the content doubters
Just to add my tuppence worth: regurgitation of press releases is really not what we do. All the people I have worked with on Tech Digest for the last three years have all been committed to writing original and entertaining content that differentiates itself from the vast numbers of other tech sites and blogs out there.
Like Andy says – and I hope I speak for pretty much all the writers – we use press releases a lot of the time, but to just copy and paste the information is not in the mindset.
@shinychris, the point Iain is making about impressions vs uniques is that having high uniques vs relative page impressions means you are not getting return visitors, bascially, people are visiting but then not coming back.
Shiny’s content is updated regularly enough for each unique to create many impressions per month so if you had loyal readers you would see a considerably higher page impression count compared to uniques visitors.
Agree with Mike – not sure why everyone has felt the need to voice their opinion on the quality of Shiny Media’s site and content, when the issue being presented very effectively by Ashley is why the VC and PR community in the UK are reluctant to invest/advertise with them or other blog networks, when clearly it IS the most popular blog network in the UK, and gets traffic that is admirable even though they are not a web application that by its very nature is more page impression heavy. Surely we should be congratulatory to one of our own here in the UK who are successful and passionate, even if you ‘think’ you wouldn’t have done the same if you were in their shoes.
@katie yeah, their writing is different: people actually like it.
@shinychris I’d be very surprised if the majority of your traffic arrive on your homepage. If your blog is a successful one, 95% of your traffic will arrive at an individual entry, then branch out.
Your homepage isn’t like a newspaper frontpage, not everyone (most) wont even see it.
@ Sarah its not just the BBC that is sparse with links, the other big UK organs (Guardian etc) are not that different in my observation. Many in the US have the same complaint about US media (MSM and big blogs) being very sparse with links and incestuous to boot. Its part of the way the game is played these days.
Thankyou Alicia. I am really not complacent – I think we face challenges around design, stickability etc. – but am really proud of what our small team has achieved with Shiny’s blog network, especially considering it has been done on a fraction of the budget of the Beeb and others (we have just one designer cum developer across 30 sites). I think as a nation we are too quick to build people/businesses up and knock ‘em down (and I speak as someone who used to write about celebs for a living). I think generally as as online community we should be standing together more, rather than bitching among ourselves and we should also be presenting a united front to advertisers who often play it far too safe with their online budgets, not recognising the opportunities that sites like ours and competitors such as Pocket Lint etc. offer.
The team running Shiny Media are very good at presenting themselves as the cutting edge of new media in the UK, and it’s a line that traditional media like The Guardian and the Beeb has swallowed whole. To a typical consumer of online media, unfortunately, the blogs are poorly designed, splattered with adverts, and have very little in the way of compelling content (aside from the cleavage shots of the female presenters in the video reviews – a deliberate ploy, perhaps?). It’s no good blaming external factors in the marketplace without taking an honest and critical view of your own performance first.
@Pauline: You should see the approval process for the neckline of our t-shirts. Nightmare.
@Stuart Miles: please stop pestering me with your phone calls, I am not going to answer them.
You are only wasting your time…which could be spent on copying and pasting some more press releases onto Pocket-Lint.
Here’s an image that was created especially for this lovely occasion (not by me, or anyone here, but by another online publication).
Apologies, TechCrunch seems to have stripped the html for that image – take a look here instead – http://www.flickr.com/photos/clashcityrockerkat/2759942844/
@Stuart You say in response to Katherine: “…not sure where you are getting your claims of blantant plagiarism”…
…how’s about the extensive example of bla(n)tant plagiarism she posted in support of her point? And yes, the Pocket-lint post has an outgoing link to the source. But that doesn’t stop it being plagiarism.
Eric.
Pocket Lint posts we have loved #5: “Called the BT Reveal, the idea is that it reveals itself to you, not like a flasher in the park, but more like: ‘Oh that’s a phone’.”
http://tinyurl.com/5wamlc
“@Stuart Miles: please stop pestering me with your phone calls, I am not going to answer them.”
And her ringtone is upsetting the rest of the office (you see this is my subtle disclaimer that I am editor of TechRadar and sit very near Kat in Future towers)
I think all of us that have been internet based journalists get frustrated at the perception of online, (just take a look at what’s happening over at Aintitcool who are now at odds with their audience because they have gone from subversive to mainstream and won’t break an embargo on the Clone Wars film http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/opinion-aintitcool-wars-show-how-how-best-sites-wither-451612 )
Breaking the rules undermines us all and it’s incredibly frustrating to champion the internet as a valid news source (it is) and the home of talented, professional and well-trained journalists (also true), only to have confidence in us all destroyed by sites that wade in and break fairly simple rules, making all of our jobs harder.
If plagiarism goes on – it’s bad for all of us. If you break embargos – it’s bad for all of us.
That’s not finger-pointing, by the way, it’s just common sense.
I for one do not subscribe to the “BBC has killed blog networks and independent online media” idea, rather I think the BBC has helped build international audience interest in British internet media overall, not just for bbc.co.uk.
The BBC is a big, well-resourced media operation, but the scope of its specialist news output (technology, business, entertainment etc) is very narrow, leaving plenty of room for other online media outlets, independent or otherwise, to get noticed and get traffic.
I like Shinymedia.
(They’ve never returned my calls or e-mails about working together. gggrrr)
But, that aside there’s some good content on their sites – although I would avoid the football side of things, look how rivals has died a death.
Thanks for the mention Ashley. Some good observations. Personally, I don’t blame the BBC for not having more traffic, though I hear the points raised and do think it should link out more in general. There are however some other, more pressing concerns.
One of the most serious issues we’ve found in the past year is a reversal in Google News fortunes. I’m a big fan of Google in general, and always loved the breadth and depth of sources on Google News, but since September there has been a real shift in how it promotes top stories. It seems to *massively* favour the bigger publishers now, which I attribute (rightly or wrongly) to the deal it did with AP.
I reckon about 90% of the promoted stories on Google News now link to the big media publishers. I’d love to hear feedback from other indie publishers on this.
Because of this change we’ve been focusing more on social media to drive traffic, to offset the fall in Google News referalls (once 100,000+ on a good day). This has allowed us to maintain our traffic figures at c800k-1.1m uniques per month, though it takes a bit more effort.
From our perspective we’ve never sought out VC or angel money, mainly because I’m a big believer in bootstrapping. This approach has to some degree hindered our ability to quickly invest in better technology, but it also means we own the company outright and are profitable (with no meddling VC types to deal with, demanding scale!).
We will get into bed with the right partner, at some stage. We have had a number of approaches from big media groups in the UK and US in the past year, so it is possible to get on the acquisition radar without doing the VC thing. We’re biding our time as I think there’s a lot of room for growth at Hecklerspray.
The key to developing a blog is *unique content* and a *clear voice*, plus *SEO skills* (both technical and content-orientated). Our design is very lo-fi, so we’ll be making improvements in the coming months: we’ve outgrown Wordpress (which is excellent for starting out) and are currently developing a new Ruby-powered publishing platform. We’ll be testing this on a new sports site, due for launch in the next few weeks, before migrating Hecklerspray. I may raise a flag on that Mike as and when ; )
On the US thing, well, we publish UK stories late morning and then shift to a US focus in the afternoon / early evening. Like all UK publishers we have always had a high percentage of US readers – between 55%-70%. We have US-based writers and I probably receive 100-150 press releases *every day* from US-based PRs. Most of our revenue is derived from the US, and I had five advertiser enquiries out of the blue yesterday… all based in the US. We know which side (of the Atlantic) our bread is buttered on.
That’s pretty much an overview of where we’re at.
Shiny has done a great job of building out its business and making some noise in the mainstream press (I don’t think we’ve yet issued a press release), and other indie sites like Pocket-Lint seem to be doing really well. It’s pleasing to see, from somebody who remembers the time when online media was about as in demand as 4-year old matured and cured dogshit.
Chris @ Hecklerspray.com
FWIW, Bridalwave.tv (another Shiny blog) has remained pretty consistently excellent for years now, and seems to me to be the only UK-based wedding blog to have gained any traction internationally. I’ve only just noticed that it no longer seems to allow comments on its entries, though. Is that a new editorial policy?
@Hecklerspray Excellent comment and congratulations on outgrowing wp, i respect any site that has the courage (or skills) to roll their own platform.
@Andrew G – the lack of comment functionality on Bridalwave is an unfortunate technical issue which we’re hoping to have fixed soon. Hope you’ll stick with the site in the meantime…
Stuart
Shiny Production Editor
Andrew, Thanks for the kind words. It’s just a technical issue (problem with spam comments). We are trying to get comments back up and running as soon as possible. Just bear with us.
I’d be interested to know the context of this rant.. what are the “flat” content websites (in niche areas like the shiny blogs) that are generating significant revenues?
Is it a problem with the blog format and the way it delivers to the user, which is obviously ideal for the way people use the web, or is it a reflection of the quality of the shiny blogs themselves?