Last week was kind of strange, in business/cultural/economic/social terms. It seems like I came across an unusual number of oddities in the news and/or around the blogosphere, and though none of these happenings necessarily deserves a whole post on its own, they all seem kind of interesting to me. Some are more perplexing than others, but I thought this cross-section of information says something about the world we’re living in right now . . . even if I’m not sure what.
- Dooce
Changes Her Twitter Page.
In support of my previous assertion that Dooce is doing a reality show, Dooce changed her Twitter page recently.This is what Dooce’s current Twitter page looks like. Don’t tell ME she’s not filming a reality show — why else would we need to have a whole cast of characters laid out like that for us?
- Pioneer Woman Is Running BlogHer Ads.
Who in the what now? Pioneer Woman’s site is currently running BlogHer ads on her splash page, the Confessions blog page, and the Homeschooling blog page. Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen subsite is still running Federated Media ads, as are the Cooking, Photography and Home and Garden blogs. I have no idea what is going on, but January is a slow month for ads, so I thought maybe she was using the BlogHer ads to fill in gaps when there is unsold ad space from Federated Media. So then I went over to the Federated Media site to see what the dealio was, and though she’s still listed as an author, they are not actively selling ads for the Pioneer Woman’s site!
I find this a little perplexing. I’m not sure whether it spells doom for blog advertising, but it vexes me — I’m not going to lie. - Chanel Is Making People Look Like Pirates, And Then Branding Their Foreheads.
From ChasNote via Not Cot is news of Chanel’s literal branding exercise in which you use their skin care products and emerge with their logo imprinted on your forehead.
You know what this means, right? Karl Lagerfeld has finally gone too far. Wait. - Newsday‘s Newspaper Pay Wall Experiment A Resounding Failure
Newsday is a Long Island newspaper that averaged approximately 2.2 million unique visitors a month up until three months ago, when they put their content behind a paywall of the type that The New York Times and other papers have been considering. As of now, three months later, the total amount of paying subscribers they have for their site is 35.
THIRTY FIVE.
Now, the caveat listed in the article I read was that there are several different sources of free subscription that might be affecting those numbers. For one thing, anybody who subscribes to the paper edition of the newspaper gets free access, and anyone who has Optimum Cable (a Long Island cable company owned by Newsday‘s parent company) gets it free. These two groups probably comprise a good portion of the Long Island population together, which partially explains the problem. Still, how good can people be feeling at the New York Times right about now?
- Pee Wee Herman Gets An iPad.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find an underground bunker and a tinfoil hat of some kind. Talk amongst yourselves.
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{ 15 comments }
#2 is very very interesting. I don’t know what to make of that either. Hopefully they just had some sort of falling-out, and it’s not harbinger of things to come (no knock on BlogHer, because I liked working with them and I think they do good stuff).
I think it might be that FM, for whatever reason, was having trouble selling her ad space. I’ve noticed a lot of blank ads on her site in recent months, and was wondering about it because for PW, that’s a lot of money. Even with BlogHer, she could be making like $50K a month off those ads, and if FM wasn’t able to sell her space, I can see why she’d leave, and fast.
It makes me wonder why they were struggling to sell her ads, though. She’s one of their biggest fish.
I actually have a pattern to knit a tin-foil hat, just let me know when to start putting them in the mail
#5 made me die a little inside…creeeeepppyyyyy!!!!!
It cracks me up that you have a pattern!
I noticed that on PWs site too & wondered about it. But given Ree’s managed to develop a very large (& expanding quickly beyond the internet) brand I don’t think it spells doom but probably that something else is in the works.
I think maybe she’s looking to sell her own ads, without a middleman, and she’s waiting for the existing contracts to expire.
Either that or she has a bunch of companies she won’t accept ads from. Some people are like that.
I think Kerry definitely could be right on that front. A lot of big fish do that to FM, use them for a while and then branch off and sell their own ads once they feel like they’re being made to carry the other, less popular sites. It would mean a lot more money for her, though she’d have to establish an infrastructure to deal with the sale of ads. But PW has definitely shown signs that this is an Enterprise for her, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she did that.
Also, it could simply be that BlogHer has reached a point where they can sell more ad space than FM can. I can see this happening. If you have more than a million page views a month, you get a higher cut from BlogHer than everyone else. Maybe it’s just easier and better money for her.
Things might be changing! I don’t know . . . very interesting stuff.
i find myself learning something new, intriguing and insightful each time i come here and read your words. i have my own opinion with regards to BH, but this is not the place to voice those views.
that being said, i wonder what this says about all bloggers… because as somewhat of a newbie blogger, seeing that “veteran bloggers” (for lack of a better term) are running ads-a-plenty places a big question mark above my head. i’m not currently running a single ad on my blog… then again, BH dropped me. 
*snort*
I’ve got no problems with people running ads (obviously). I love to watch what PW does because she is so clearly a smart businesswoman, and does whatever she does deliberately.
sorry, i didn’t mean that to come across as me taking issue with those who run ads. i don’t at all. i’m just not currently running any. and i agree with what you said about PW.
You are good. Rosie O’Donnell’s bizarre blog also hosts BlogHer ads. This bit of trivia doesn’t add anything to the discussion, but I felt the need to blurt it out there.
ah deb… how i have adored you for a long, loooooong time, and especially your blurts.
Interesting. Rosie must get a decent amount of traffic, too.
Now why would FM be having trouble selling her ads? Interesting.
I totally agree about Dooce–the new Twitter page is much more TV-audience friendly, especially for people who haven’t been reading her for a hundred years.
The Chanel thing is just vulgar.
Becky, I don’t know. I should say I don’t know that they HAVE been having trouble, I just know that I’ve seen a lot of blank ad space over there recently. It might be that she deliberately had them stop selling the ads, rather than an inability to sell.
I tend to think trouble selling just because I know that one of the PF sites went over to FM in the past few months and was complaining about the rate of sales, at least initially. He was saying it caused him to lose money, at least at first, to switch from private ads to FM. He decided to switch away from private ads because it was too time intensive to manage that part of the business for him, easier to have them do it. I don’t know if things have improved for him or not, though.
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