On Canadian Dream’s post today he talks about the possibility of forming a new shared personal finance blog with multiple writers. This got me thinking a bit about the concept and I thought I would share some of my thoughts.First of all I think a group blog is a great idea. There are lots of bloggers who only want to post infrequently and sharing a blog would help keep the traffic up so that there would be people still reading your posts even if you only posted once or twice a week. I personally haven’t “hit the wall” yet but if I ever get to a point where I just can’t or won’t post several times a week then sharing a blog with a couple of other bloggers would be ideal.
I’m guessing there could be other motives for forming a group blog and they would be financial. A lot of blogs have advertising but as successful as some blogs are in terms of hits, it’s difficult for a single person to expand that blog without quitting their day job to write content for the site. The answer of course is the shared blog. However if the shared blog is to be run like a company then I’m not sure how well it would work if there a lot of bloggers involved. Who has the final say on things? Who controls the money? Who decides the layout?
My suggestion would be that a better idea is to have one person who is keen on creating a profitable site and has access to financing, to be the owner of the new site. They would get other bloggers to write posts by paying them. It could be small amounts at first and then maybe more money if the site takes off. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could get a lot of quality posts for $10/post. The idea would be to create a “must visit” blog which will drive traffic to the point where the advertising revenue can create a profit.I didn’t think of this idea of course, one example that I’m thinking of is hockeybuzz.com which is a hockey blog run by a guy named Eklund who supposedly has a lot of nhl connections. If I’m not mistaken, he started the blog himself and then later added posts from other writers. I would assume at this point that he pays those writers but I don’t know that for a fact. Who can do this? Someone with a lot of drive, access to money, good webmaster skills would help. You could start a site from scratch but nothing breeds success like success so I would suggest that you follow the Eklund model and expand on an already popular site. Canadian Capitalist comes to mind as well as Million Dollar Journey. CC has built up his traffic over the last several years while MDJ worked some kind of magic to quickly create a very popular site.I don’t think either of those guys wants to start writing more posts per day but if they could get other people to write the extra posts then that would be a way of expanding their sites.Why don’t I want to do something like this? For one thing I don’t believe the Canadian personal finance world is big enough to support a blog like hockeybuzz.com. The hockey blog world much, much bigger than the Canadian personal finance blogworld. Plus I rather like having my own little blog.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Mike, and thanks for the mention. There was no magic involved with my blog, just write decent content and be involved with the community.
I think that with your writing skill, your blog can become big also!
I agree with your assessment with profit sharing etc, it could get a bit complicated. I think the biggest benefit of a multiple writer blog would be for that writer to receive exposure to their personal blog. That’s why I offer guest posters on my blog, it provides free exposure for them and quality content for me. Win-Win!
FT
Interesting idea about paying for a post. I didn’t think I could get anyone to write for $10/post. I suppose it is worth trying.
MDJ – you definitely have decent content. Thanks for the compliment!
The guest post idea is a good one. I had seriously considered just doing guest posts before I committed to my own blog.
CC – I’m not suggesting you try to create the next hockeybuzz but it is theoretically possible. $10/post isn’t a lot but for someone who posts say three times a week – that would be $130/month. I’m guessing that MDJ doesn’t pay anything for his guest posts.
What about your boys? Can they write yet? 🙂
I forgot to mention in the post but newspapers pay different amounts to different writers which could also apply to a blog. Also, I believe you can tell how many views each post gets so maybe the compensation could be based on that?
Mike
Yea, it simply wouldn’t work if I paid the guest posters, the blog would go under in no time! The biggest thing I can leverage is MDJ’s traffic and page rank, which to most bloggers is worth more than a few dollars.
Just like CC, with the huge traffic (relative to other Canadian blogs), and high page rank, he should have no problem finding guest posters. I would volunteer for one. 🙂
There’s a definite possibility that there just isn’t any significant money to be made in the Cdn PF world. I think what one might need to do is stop with all the low cost, save money content and instead push expensive retail products. Encourage your readers to buy mutual funds with the highest MERs they can find, pay the posted rate on their mortage, insure themselves for ten million etc etc. This way you could get some good revenue from the financial industry – they have huge bucks to spend.
Mike
MDJ: Are you serious? I’d love to have a guest post from you.
Mike: I’ll explore this idea a bit further. I guess it is worth experimenting.
Mike: I sincerely hope bloggers would maintain strict independence from the financial industry. But realistically, the blogging world will end up looking like mainstream media. Many will write about the hottest funds and star managers and a few holdouts (I hope to be one) will constantly remind people of the basics.
The model I try to emulate is Canadian Money Saver. Quality content delivered with integrity and not tainted by money. It will never be a big business but that’s okay. I didn’t get into this game hoping to make big money (I’d have given up long ago!) and I like it that way.
Sounds good.
I should clarify that my comment #5 was not a serious one. I forgot the smiley… 🙁
I must admit I like CC’s idea. It might be a better model that a superblog setup.
Well CC if you ever need a guest post send me an email. I would love to write one.
Mike – Thanks for the link and keep up the great work. I really enjoy your blog.
CD
Thanks CD. It’s great to hear that you like the blog.
Mike
I’m sure there has to be ways to monitor the traffic to figure out all the items you mentioned.
Yah – the multi-column idea is good although space would be a problem assuming each blogger gets one column. I like the hockeybuzz idea although that won’t work if you have several bloggers sharing the site. Maybe the hockeybuzz format could be changed so that the ‘main bloggers’ or owners could have their posts show up in one column (newest at the top) and then a second column could be guest/other bloggers or whatever.
I’m still trying to figure out how to get a Canadian flag into my header so I’ve got a long way to go before I can consider expansion!
Mike
I dont believe the Canadian personal finance world is big enough to support a blog like hockeybuzz.com
The last thing this personal finance world needs is to model itself on the “Eklund” model. The man’s been exposed as a fraud and has been wrong far far more than he’s guessed right. The beuaty of the pfblogosphere is the sincerity and genuine content. Nobody’s pretending to be someone they’re not, and whenever the odd site comes up that’s blatantly more interested in ads and revenue than providing quality content, they lose their credibility and, I hope, their readability.
GIV – I’ll agree Eklund is full of sh**, it was more the specific layout of his site that I was referring to.
Mike