Federated/Battelle/Arrington/Malik/Microsoft trainwreck
These are all the posts you need to read to find out WTF is going on with this soap opera:
Jeff Jarvis has detailed coverage that sums up the problems pretty well. Federated Media sells the ad space on his blog, and he is critical of their actions. (My question: Why didn’t he blog about this at the time?)
John Battelle, founder and CEO of Federated Media, a guy I really respect and think is pretty cool, leaves me unimpressed with his explanation of what went down and why it was no biggie. Thing is, I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed in him, because I’ve read some of his musings on ‘conversational marketing’ and the future of ads and found it all very short-sighted and unimaginative and trad. (Battelle is at his best when talking search, which he knows inside out.)
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, says he is “now pissed off at every single person involved in this“. I don’t think Mike is quite connecting the dots here, and is perhaps blinded by disgust for Nick Denton’s Valleywag (disgust which is justified by past Denton antics, if not by his trumpeting of the Microsoft story). (Aside: Shouldn’t Denton have disclosed his own interests in stoking this controversy? Just asking.)
The whole debate strikes me as slightly dumb and boring, as ads are not where revenue growth will be in anything but the very short term. From that perspective, I can see why the likes of Federated and certain bloggers are trying to milk that cow while they can. But really: It’s obvious Federated did wrong. The larger wrong is in persisting to see the interruptive, intrusive ad as the cockroach of revenue streams. It will not survive, not in numbers that are going to help companies like Arrington’s to make payroll for much longer.
Filed under: Life
Jackie,
Very fair question.
I did write about it at the time but without specifics. Here’s the post:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/10/19/corrupting-blogs/
I did that for a few reasons:
First, there is a need for confidentiality in business. These were their negotiations going on and they needed to be able to discuss this with me. I said no in both cases, firmly, and I took the lesson to the blog and talked about it there. But I didn’t think it was right to reveal the network (though since FM has demanded exclusivity, it wouldn’t have been difficult for anybody who cared to suss it out) or the advertisers.
Second, I actually thought they had abandoned the Cisco thing entirely. I never saw an ad and when they said that Cisco had changed course, I thought that’s what it meant. Bad assumption.
And I”m not sure the other one ever happened. It was, I believe, a pitch.
I don’t think this is about exposing and scooping. Advertisers try to push boundaries every day. It’s more about sharing the lessons and learning and coming to our own conclusions about our own boundaries. That’s why I wrote about this then and now.
jeff
Oh, and I disagree about ad revenue. Arrington said publicly quite sometime ago that he was clearing something like 70k per month after expenses. I’m sure it’s much more. And I’m delighted about that. Advertisers will, indeed, come in and support good new endeavors in this world if we help them - with measurement, ease of negotiation, ease of placement, and quality and credibility.
Thanks, Jeff.
I know how much Arrington makes (I could have sworn it I read it was six figures only a few months ago), that people like Heather Armstrong make good livings from it, etc. I can’t know how long this will last, but I strongly suspect not more than ten years, not when measureable methods like search actually bring big returns. Also, information and actual value are so easy now to deliver that interrupting people with electronic billboards makes little sense. I know the ad industry will fight to the death to keep making this money, long after most finally accept the lack of value of their work and long after the shysters stop lying to clients about that. But this is a fastly declining golden age for interruption. Make the ducats while you can.