Pajamas Media Again

My response to Gerard Van der Leun on elitism is here. If interested in PJM you'll also want to read this at HOI and this at Anechoic Room.

Dean Esmay responded to my post on elite bloggers.

What most interests me about this is how many people seem convinced Pajamas Media has no coherent business model. This is completely false. It's probably the case that a lot of the Pajamas bloggers don't quite understand the business plan, but this is probably because relatively few of them have ever run a business or been involved in a venture capital startup. I've done both--failures, alas, but not through lack of trying. Their model looks better than any I've seen in the past, so long as they follow through with execution.

I've been with start ups and established corporations and I couldn't care less about a business plan in this regard. No one buys stock based upon a company's business plan, they invest based upon performance. But, anyone who suggests it's wrong to wonder about a business plan, which usually includes a name and marketing strategy around it, in PJM's case is missing the point.

Dean points out the need for execution. Very true. Hopefully PJM won't have to execute the business plan as quickly as they had to execute the incredibly amateurishly chosen OSM name. They did a big launch and put up a site that everyone, inside and out hasn't liked - yep, execution is the key. Suggesting that as a defense of PJM at this point makes no sense at all to me. Hopefully they'll improve.

Do they represent the "elite" bloggers? No, certainly not,

Don't tell me, tell it to the CSM:

the nascent media company has gathered some of the most highly regarded bloggers on the Internet at one site (osm.org), hoping, as co-founder Roger Simon puts it, "to be the place for breaking Internet opinion."

That readership and notoriety is making these elite blogs attractive to advertisers. Mr. Simon and his partner, Charles Johnson, who writes the popular conservative blog "Little Green Footballs", believe that forming a group of elite bloggers can be an even better moneymaking proposition as their collective site sees its readership and ad rates soar.

Dean continues:

One of the odder things to me is the people who get their feelings hurt or their noses out of joint because they weren't asked. Look, this isn't the Senior Prom, it's a business. They had the budget for X number of bloggers to start, with an idea of expanding beyond X once they got enough revenue to justify it. Why is that so hard to understand?

As most if not all of the criticism I've seen is being posted by bloggers who have expressed no desire to be a part of it, I can't quite grasp the point. It looks like something of a straw man argument I've seen around the sphere. Also, I'm unaware of a need for any site or blog to be able to afford, or pay another blogger for linking to its posts - except perhaps for PJM, if some of the copyright notices I've seen referenced are to be believed.

I don't have a quarrel with their ad syndication play - it isn't a new idea and it's the side of the business which doesn't interest me at all just now, except as an observer of the potential conflicts of interest it represents. But I really don't have much to say about that one way or another from my perspective today.

Instapundit is one of the larger traffic directors around the blogosphere for many blogs, not this one - though I've certainly appreciated a link from him when it's come my way. But I don't see the fact that his site along with several others are, in a sense, being bought and paid for through advertising by PJM as having much, if any real impact on me.

That may not alter PJM bloggers content or linking patterns at all for all I know. It'll be interesting to see if it somehow does.

Comments

[Steve H.]

The "jealousy" argument is the one that makes me giggle the most. Pajamarama accepted applications at the start. Let's see them produce the email where I begged to join. I actually searched my email, because I wasn't sure I had always had a low opinion of Pajamas Media. I didn't find a smoking gun, but I did find an email I wrote back in May, advising a fellow blogger not to join. Even then, I thought the idea was stupid.

On the other hand, I could publish a list of the bloggers who were begged to join and turned PJM down. Not a long list, but it includes some PJM critics. One PJM cheerleader who came to my blog and had an embarrassing nervous breakdown over my abuse of PJM, says he turned them down.

I blog because I want to sell books, not two-bit blog ads. From the standpoint of a true media success like Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly, the PJM boys are silly little insects. Why would I aspire to THAT?

[Confederate Yankee]

I can't speak as to the motivations of the other PJ Media bloggers, but I thought I could tell you about my involvement.

I applied to join for the most nefarious of reasons: it sounded like an adventure, involving a bunch of folks I already respected. Many of the bloggers in today's PJ Media (27 by a quick count) were folks I already read at least occasionally. And yeah, I applied, I wasn’t asked to join.

To date, I still can't understand the venom from some folks. If Dennis the Peasant or others feel like they got hosed by Roger or Charles in some way, I can understand their motivations. But a lot of folks I simply can't figure out.

Nor can I understand their charges.

Did I “sell out to the man?” Not at these rates.

Am I seeing a lot of additional site traffic from PJ Media sites? The same folks that linked to me before are the ones still linking to me now, plus the portal. Check out my sitemeter if you think that one additional link is driving traffic.

Am I under any sort of a gag order? Please. A small little start-up like Pajamas wouldn’t waste half their capital to sue a blogger for leaking "sooper secret" information.

One thing I do know for sure. If Pajamas Media is so sure to be a failure, folks are sure are wasting a lot of time and energy on it, which is rather odd behavior. In any event, they are certainly far more worried about it than I am.

[don surber]

I'm jealous. I got over it. This is bureaucratic bull. Let's start a Synergy Watch. When that word appears, you know they are dead
Time-CNN "Synergy" = Tailwind Story
Microsofdt-GE "Synergy" = MSNBC

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

Over a year ago, I was asked to join PJM ( I had a different blog at the time.) I didn't respond, primarily because I'm not a 'pro' or 'elite' blogger.

I don't do very much to push myself (I don't even trade links. I just blogroll the folks I like, after they agree to an 'On the Couch' interview, etc.), and consider myself fortunate to have a terrific, growing readership (who knows, maybe they'll ask me again).

Seems to me if the PJM/OSM really want to make money, the shortest distance between 2 points is straight line.

Cut a deal with a credit card issuer- and announce a PJM/OSM affinity credit card. PJM/OSM reach millions of readers, every day. PJM/OSM gets a piece of the pie while the cardholders can get points, miles, whatever else AND a chance for a featured post on an OSM site, invitation to OSM events, exclusive political meets, book club deals- the list goes on and on.

Why reinvent the wheel? AARP, Alumni groups, etc etc have done all the groundwork.

That said, I need to come around here more often!

[Bill from INDC]

One PJM cheerleader who came to my blog and had an embarrassing nervous breakdown over my abuse of PJM, says he turned them down.

That's an amusing charachterization. I don't believe that quite calmly berating you for your oddly hostile tone - even with its own amused hostility - constitutes "an embarrassing nervous breakdown."

But let's let the folks decide on the sanity of your descriptions.

http://www.hogonice.com/2005/11/the_empire_strikes_back.html

http://www.hogonice.com/2005/11/i_am_the_meanest_guy_ever.html

[Steve H.]

This is like Roy Jones proudly linking to a video of the second Tarver fight.

[Bill from INDC]

You really have a tenuous grasp on reality, Steve.

[Kyle]

William, you are a terribly important person.