The Blogging Business
// July 29th, 2006 // Articles/Features, T-shirts
I’ve been thinking about what classes as a blog these days. That term has almost come to mean any site that displays content chronologically and isn’t run for a profit. Unfortunately its also become a pseudonym for other things like sloppy journalism and information aggregation. The first of those two this site is definitely guilty of, its the second that this post is about.
Before the net really exploded the talk was around how it would cut out or disintermediate the middle man. Technology would streamline processes and remove some of the value in traditional middle man practices of assembling and distributing goods and services eg wholesalers, distributors and retailers. Most of the big, early, but doomed .coms were based around this model such as Boo.com
“Disintermediation is the most important structural change brought about by the Internet”
Palmer & McCole (2000)
The benefit to us is reduced cost through increased market competition and the removal of the margins added by these intermediaries. One of the best examples of where this has worked is in the music industry where distribution costs have dropped to almost zero through the digitization of music. This has allowed record labels and bands to sell direct to the consumer.
Where is this going? Good question, I’m still thinking that through, the point I’m trying to make is that the term “blog” is too insular and only represents a small sub-section of those that are now labeled under it. I don’t consider this site a blog because
- 99% of the time its all original content
- The “posts” are intentionally long and not really written to attract casual readership,
there are no digg friendly how to’s or top 10’s.
- sometimes I use references… yep references… in a “blog”
It seems today that blogs are becoming labeled as the nets ugly, dunce of a sister. Actually sites aimed at specific niches perform an existing business function, but without charging for it. This function is the sourcing and filtering of available information and products. This reduces the time the consumer has to spend searching for whatever it is they are looking for.
If you wanted to book a holiday a travel agent would perform this search for you and add their margin, few blogs ask for anything in return. We are distributors, only distributors of information.
“Value has shifted from the product itself to information about the product.”
Wise and Morrison (2000)
How does this work with HipHipUK? Well I’ve adapted a model from Anderson & Anderson
1. Solve Customers Problem
– Where can I find the best t-shirts?
2. Gain Customer Knowledge
What do customers like?
- monitor via clickthroughs, feedback and post popularity
3. Solve Producer’s problem
- How do I market to my target customer segment
4. Gain Producer Knowledge
Cycle repeats back to 1. Solve Customers Problem
- What are the best producers to feature? Gain inside knowledge of market activities through contacts at producer
People speculate on what the future of blogs will be, With every individual and business now online, the consumer will have more information at their disposal. This is shown in the popularity of social networking/bookmarking sites like delicious and digg.
Do I have a point to this? Only really that blogs often don’t get the respect they deserve for the time and effort they take to produce at little gain to the creator.
References
Anderson, P. & Anderson, E. (2002) The New e-Commerce Intermediaries, Sloan Management Review, Summer, pp. 53-62
Palmer, A & McCole, P 2000 “The role of electronic commerce in creating virtual
tourism destination marketing organisationsâ€, International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 198-204.
Wise, R & Morrison, D (2000). “Beyond the exchange: The future of B2Bâ€, Harvard Business Review, November-December, pp. 85-96.
