First you create content, then you build distribution, then you monetize it all. Media is pretty simple and straightforward when you break it down.
Founder Om Malik announced that IDG will sell ads for Om Malik’s GigaOm Media, which means that Malik’s empire becomes the latest property to leave Federated Media, John Battelle’s company. I suppose GigaOm was not happy with the results from FM and Battelle, who has a thankless job of ad repping tech sites who look at a magazine like The Economist and wonder why they’re not getting those advertisements and advertisers.
IDG, a traditional, print-centric media firm, must be getting “the BIG idea” and will now be repping Giga Om Media. This type of deal can work, it might fail. But more importantly, it shows that they get it in the sense that the worst thing a media company can do is to get attached to its distribution, in this case, print. IDG recognizes that a major asset it has is its client relationship.
Distribution is wildly overrated. I am not saying it is not valuable, of course it is, but the value lies in
1) the content that is distributed and
2) the revenue, ie. the advertisers.
Expect more media companies to start doing this: repping new media sites. We have seen CBS repping a few newbies. SONY is also doing it with Rocketboom. Print of course is in more dire straits than TV, so this is not the last example of this.
You might be asking: will IDG buy GigaOm Media? It is indeed a first step towards an acquisition… I expect to see IDG content on GigaOm properties next, though. It’s also possible IDG asked for some kind of warrants or first right of refusal, which I hope and presume Om kindly refused.
If anything, I see this as a hedge by Malik who is wary that the economic slowdown will be too severe for a relatively new sales organization like FM to weather.
Related:
The title has a double meaning, of course.
From Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington, on GigaOm’s acquisition of a wireless blog:
I’m sticking to my argument that blogs should get cash positive and then start to acquire others - raising a slug of money just gives people an incentive to spend it, and you lose control to a group of investors who may know little or nothing about how to build a blog.
Replace blog with any content site and I agree whole-heartedly. It’s nothing against VCs, but let them stick to technology startups… they’re doing a helluva great job at that, after all.
I think Arrington at some point tried to raise VC and realized that it would be imprudent, and he’s now wiser for it. Sort of like someone I know.
Congrats to Om and his team for the acquisition though.
With the announcement that GigaOm was hiring a COO, raising more money, I think it’s safe to say that 2007 will mark both the end and new beginning of blogs… as business.
Clearly, the number of blogs in high tech alone is numbing: Rafat Ali, Michael Arrington, Om Malik have clearly been joined by others in trying to usurp market share in tech reporting.
Technically, HipMojo.com is in that lot, too, though we don’t really want to be in the business of news reporting per se, and rather, try to offer commentary, analysis from the perspective of an insider. Think think-thank, with a vantage point, if I dare say that. I clearly see the need for these businesses to delineate editorial from business, as would any media company.
Anyway, this comes on the heels of PaidContent’s expansion into the UK, and Tech Crunch hiring a COO and being on the cusp of raising money too. There’s nothing wrong with these content sites raising money of course, the opportunity is huge and they’re applying pressure to traditional news and trade media publications. It’s just clear that when magazines such Business 2.0 are about to be kyboshed and these blog empires are expanding, the line between blog network and old media is pretty much dead. You can’t really get away with trying not to play by news reporting rules when you are, in fact, reporting the news and competing with news organizations. That applies here too, I have way too much inside information by way of being an executive that I don’t really feel I should disclose ASAP. Obviously it adds to the merit of some of the posts and what not, but as we grow, too, I realize that before you press publish, you have some ethical guidelines to abide by, and just because you’re on Wordpress, MovableType etc., does not mean you are above those rules.
Hence the 2007: Blogs - RIP; Long Live Blogs moniker.
Om Malik’s GigaOmniMEdia launched its latest blog, covering companies focused on all things green: It’s called Clean2Tech.com and here it is.
In his words: it’s “a site devoted to the business of clean technologies, its innovations and everything else. While there are many sites that help consumers live “greener,” we are focusing our energies on the business of clean and green.”
Definitely a smart addition to his blog empire. By the way, what do you call a blog mogul? A Blogul?
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