Becoming an Aggregator /Blog Network Site | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I've been thinking for sometime that I would like to add other blogs to my site using an aggregator method and wanted to ask opinions about this.  I already have the technology in place and could host people with their own domains already or migrate from blogger etc too.

Speaking from a perspective of a blogger on the Yakezie challenge what are your initial reactions to possible positive or negative things that migrating your site to mine would have?

I am trying to brainstorm so that I can create a value prop that makes sense for people, addresses all their concerns, and offers value.

Building off Eric (and maybe a bit more blunt) what value do you bring? Why would I bring my site to your host?  What are the charges? 

Are you going to host blog on your VPS or are you going to just have 4 or 5 writers? 

Upside and downside of either:

Host Blogs:

-  Most blogs do not make jack shit.  They just don't.  So you are going to take a cut of that already small profit – doesn't seem worth the headache of hosting blogs for you.  Then you have the added problem of whether they tell you about private deals.  

-  I guess the pro would be that someone saved the 60 or so bucks it costs to get shared hosting. 

-  I'd be real worried if I were you in terms of someone doing some black hat stuff and then getting your IP flagged bringing your site down with it.  

Just one main blog with you getting articles for your site:

-  No ownership by someone who is looking to start a blog.  That would bother me and I suspect would bother almost every single person that took the initiative to join the Yakezie.  Maybe you could start on the new people still using blogspot.  

-  You really are only going to get new bloggers (which is good and bad).  Anyone established isn't going to give up their own site to save 50 or 60 bucks which is what share hosting is.  

I wish you luck I just don't really get it.  

Its a host blog, front page shows your newest post. Plus point is that that front page is a portal, all readers who come to the site will see whoever wrote a post on the top.

What that means is if you have 3-4 blogs with 1000 readers daily and you go away for a week, or can only post infrequently you don't drop off the radar, you get the shared readership who click through.  Once they click your post they are in 'your site' just the url is different from before.  You have a home page, sections, recommended next post, RSS and Email subscription to just your blog, not the network.  Why have 3-4 blogs all trying to pump out posts,when you can share the readers?  Some will naturally draw to certain bloggers but there will be overlap.

From an affiliate perspective you get all the links updated and all the newest and best offers – so a person with good content but who has only a few months of posting could just plug straight into affiliates they wouldn't normally be able to access and could monetize from a much earlier time.

The revenue share would mean that whilst you would not get 100% of your pie, the pie would be that much bigger.

I plan to start out with 4-5 bloggers and build from there, its all about finding quality people.

I know a woman who is doing this. She was featured on NPR a few months ago for something unrelated and then I discovered that she was actually a friend of a friend. You can find more on hers at http://thescoopblogs.com/

Personally, I think it's a great idea if you have the marketing ability to get it off the ground. You get a lot of authors who write a lot of content and then Google starts to like you a lot. Then you pay the authors a percentage of ad revenue and pocket the rest as passive-income. Just look at how big ehow.com is. When I do a search on Google, it's not uncommon to see as many as three ehow articles on the first page of results.

MyJourneytoMillions said:

I agree with Edward it isn't a bad idea but it will never get off the ground with Yakezie members (maybe challengers).  Not a prediction but a guarantee. If you are going to get this idea going you need a site with more than just a thousand visitors a day.  If a site with a couple hundred thousand eyeballs a month offered this it may be worth it for someone established. 

 

1)  Yakezie members have been blogging for 6 months most people quit within days they aren't just going to turn everything over.

2)  Even if they could have their own site and then you just republish their feed you could be doing both sites a disservice with duplicate content issues. 

3)  If they make no money on your site how long till they realize they can just go back to their own site and still make no money but at least it is their corner of the internet.

 

Again, I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea I just don't think you are going to get any traction here.  No need to debate just create a forum post, or a yakezie blog post and see how many people sign up. 

I have to agree with Evan on this one… if you have the traffic to support it then you will have people signing up in droves, without the traffic I dont see it happening for the established members.

MoneyIsTheRoot said:

MyJourneytoMillions said:

I agree with Edward it isn't a bad idea but it will never get off the ground with Yakezie members (maybe challengers).  Not a prediction but a guarantee. If you are going to get this idea going you need a site with more than just a thousand visitors a day.  If a site with a couple hundred thousand eyeballs a month offered this it may be worth it for someone established. 

 

1)  Yakezie members have been blogging for 6 months most people quit within days they aren't just going to turn everything over.

2)  Even if they could have their own site and then you just republish their feed you could be doing both sites a disservice with duplicate content issues. 

3)  If they make no money on your site how long till they realize they can just go back to their own site and still make no money but at least it is their corner of the internet.

 

Again, I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea I just don't think you are going to get any traction here.  No need to debate just create a forum post, or a yakezie blog post and see how many people sign up. 

I have to agree with Evan on this one… if you have the traffic to support it then you will have people signing up in droves, without the traffic I dont see it happening for the established members.

I don't want droves – I want a select number, operating at a similar level to myself who can then grow our readership and affiliate buying power at an exponential rate.  That is why this thread makes a good place to ask the question as there are challengers and full members here.

saverocity said:

I think you misunderstand.  I don't necessarily want anyone from Yakezie, I am just asking people here what their objections would be.  So I can understand gaps in my value prop for the people I do want.  That is the purpose of debate in the forum.  I don't want a mass of signups, I want to cherry pick the best, and make an offer so good that they think it makes sense.

Why I wouldn't?

1)  I wouldn't trust that I won't be doing most of the work.  Why would I continuously post 3 times or 5 times a week if no one else in the network is. 

2)  If I am anti-the tech side of it I can just start a wordpress.com site.  But then I don't have a domain? But I don't have a domain with you either I am working off of yours with no ownership.

3)  If we are talking outside the yakezie world – For the most part how would I find you? Are you going to just email people with blogs asking them if they want to give up their little corner of the internet to come join you on your network?  They are going to ask you the same questions

4)  I wouldn't trust that I am getting my fair share of revenue.  Again, without a relationship (see number 3) how would that trust be built. 

For me, it doesn't seem like you are trying to build a network.  It sounds like you want staff writers without having to pay them for the possibility that there is ad revenue to share afterwards.  Not a bad model I just don't think it is going to work out all that well with the people you have here (although you say this isn't your market). 

Untemplater did that when it first came out (before it was purchased).  It was 5 or 6 pretty big bloggers  (like each with 50K+ PV per month) and they came together all each owning the site, not one person owning.  It went dormant for a while probably because of the reasons above…and then it was sold each getting their equal share.   

saverocity said:

MyJourneytoMillions said:

I agree with Edward it isn't a bad idea but it will never get off the ground with Yakezie members (maybe challengers).  Not a prediction but a guarantee. If you are going to get this idea going you need a site with more than just a thousand visitors a day.  If a site with a couple hundred thousand eyeballs a month offered this it may be worth it for someone established. 

 

1)  Yakezie members have been blogging for 6 months most people quit within days they aren't just going to turn everything over.

2)  Even if they could have their own site and then you just republish their feed you could be doing both sites a disservice with duplicate content issues. 

3)  If they make no money on your site how long till they realize they can just go back to their own site and still make no money but at least it is their corner of the internet.

 

Again, I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea I just don't think you are going to get any traction here.  No need to debate just create a forum post, or a yakezie blog post and see how many people sign up. 

I think you misunderstand.  I don't necessarily want anyone from Yakezie, I am just asking people here what their objections would be.  So I can understand gaps in my value prop for the people I do want.  That is the purpose of debate in the forum.  I don't want a mass of signups, I want to cherry pick the best, and make an offer so good that they think it makes sense.

Understood, but you are asking bloggers from Yakezie as your sample group to answer these questions, therefore it only makes sense to answer from this perspective.  In fact, I agree that you would come here if you wanted a robust audience with finance blogs and a good knowledge base…and to me I think they are saying it wouldn't be worth it for them.  Again, I think if you had a a ton of traffic then you would have the ability to cherry pick people, but I think it's going to take some work for you to build the traffic first and then get sites later. 

saverocity said:

Edward Antrobus said:

I know a woman who is doing this. She was featured on NPR a few months ago for something unrelated and then I discovered that she was actually a friend of a friend. You can find more on hers at http://thescoopblogs.com/

Personally, I think it's a great idea if you have the marketing ability to get it off the ground. You get a lot of authors who write a lot of content and then Google starts to like you a lot. Then you pay the authors a percentage of ad revenue and pocket the rest as passive-income. Just look at how big ehow.com is. When I do a search on Google, it's not uncommon to see as many as three ehow articles on the first page of results.

Great – but why would you, or would you not join such a network?

Me, personally? No, because I am stretched rather too thin right now as it is. I'm already part of a similar project at Penny Thots. But if I had time to write more, sure. It is a workable model.