Blogzines to look at

One of the things we're going to be doing over the next few weeks is setting up some blogzines. It's a kind of group project. The idea is to get you having a go straightaway at creating a commercial blog that, in theory, could draw an audience of interested readers and even draw in some advertising. I'm going to split you up into groups - two or three, I'm not sure. Then the aim will be to come up with an idea for a commercial blogzine.

So what we need to do now is competition analysis. We need to look at what's out there - to figure out if there's a gap in the market or if there's a niche interest or an audience we could serve better.

The key players in the commercial world are Nick Denton, whose Gawker Media pioneered the idea of using blogs to create lean, mean money-making online magazines. His main competition in the US comes from Weblogs Inc, set up by Jason Calacanis. Over here, Shiny Media has been trying to give the blogzine idea a British spin.

As part of the research for the project, let's look at a number of blogs put together by these companies. Here's a few you could try.

Gawker, Jalopnik, Idolator and Defamer - all Denton blogs.

Slashfood, DS Fanboy, The Cancer Blog and Engadget - all Weblogs Inc productions

Corrie Blog, Bridalwave, ShinyShiny and Pop Junkie - all Shiny Media blogs

I want you to look at some of these and get answers to the following questions.

• What's the blog about, who is it aimed at and why would they read it?
• How often is it updated, what kind of things does it cover?
• What's the style/tone/attitude of the posts? Who writes them?
• How does the blog use links? Multimedia? Audience participation?
• What do you think of the design?
• Do you think the blog makes money? if so, how?

OK - once you've had chance to think about this, we'll pool ideas. What I want you to do for next week is go off and think of an idea for a commercial blog like the ones you've just looked at. Next week, we'll split up into groups and have a pitch session.

Comments

[Camilla]

Hi Jim,
I'm very happy to see one of the sites I edit (Bridalwave) as part of your class project.
We're a friendly bunch if you want any more info that you haven't already gleaned!
Best wishes,
Camilla