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Danger, danger

3 comments on Danger, danger

Danger, danger
: Om Malik says that VCs are getting antsy in invest in blogs. That might sound sweet but beware: Blogs are essentially small and when big guys invest they expect big returns and when the returns aren’t big then blogs will have cooties. Nick Denton has issued that warning.

Om does say that Technorati is rumored to be getting an investment and that would be good news because it could grow more services. And, like Blogger, it clearly needs to get its operational act together, for days go by without updates (and I keep getting ripped off on the Top 100 list, he said selfishly).

: UPDATE: A VC responds. Says Fred Wilson:

Well maybe we’ll invest in some blogging stuff. Most likely it will be aggregation sites like Technorati and others. And tools for blogging like Six Apart and others. I doubt VCs will invest directly in blogs because most blogs are too niche for VC returns.

But i think the bigger impact for VCs will be in using blogging to talk about what they are interested in, get intelligence, network, etc. That’s a big reason why i blog.

3 responses to “Danger, danger”

  1. aaron wall Avatar
    aaron wall

    Blogs are not big ONLY BECAUSE they lack proper funding. If we can get corporate images with corporate overtones on a dysfunctional unclear overpriced blog… I think it would be a HUGE success.

  2. Lynxx Pherrett Avatar
    Lynxx Pherrett

    “…blogs will have cooties.”
    You mean they don’t already?

  3. P Caldwell Avatar
    P Caldwell

    Blogs ARE big, some of them anyway. But the big ones are popular because they’re associated with significant content, e.g., NRO’s blog, Reason’s blog, TNR’s blog, etc.
    Investment in a blog would require returns, I agree, but what sort of blog would provide those returns? As your VC respondent noted, a multi-poster blog like Technorati will draw readers (and ad/product revenue). But that is because the aggregate blogs provide “content” in the form of opinions people want to read.
    Other blog models might include: entertainment blogs (e.g., Britney Spears’s diary); blogs attached to or affiliated with already popular sites (e.g., NRO); and moderated project blogs detailing progress on a loosly defined group project (e.g., open source development projects).
    On the whole, though, I don’t think the personal blogs, whether personal diaries or limited to the blogger’s interests, will ever catch on in a commercial sense independently of an outside expertise.
    Interesting post, though!