Jayvee Fernandez, b5media’s technology channel editor asks on his blog: If a network problogger left the blogosphere, would anyone care?

Jayvee compares network bloggers to editors of magazines. Jayvee comes from the print/publications industry (a fact I know), and I can surmise that he has quite some experience with the inner workings of print magazines. And in these, the editor in chief plays a big part in terms of the creative direction of the publication. So whenever there is a change in the editor, everything also changes.

So then the big question mark: what happens when the EIC leaves the magazine, taking with him all the personality and direction he set up throughout the many months, years and yes, even to the very point of taking the entire magazine staff with him?

The publisher is stuck. The staff becomes confused. Morale is low.
In the new media publishing business, can the same be said?

So same with editors in print outfits, many things change whenever a blog changes hands.

So when a problogger leaves the networked owned blog, the blog manager of the network has to find a new writer through word of blog, personal recommendations, advertising, and email blasts. A new blogger eventually comes who is fit to take over the content. Now here’s the thing. There are several things happening between the time the original blogger leaves and the time the new blogger makes his first few posts …

I have seen this happen myself, and not only with blogs of small audiences. I have seen quite popular blogs (like the Blog Herald and 901am, for instance; you can even include JOAB, Wisdump, and even this very blog.) go through a change in ownership and change in authorship. And in these instances, it’s the community built around the readership that notices the changes almost immediately.

So to answer Jayvee’s question, yes people would care. Some might even feel strongly against the change in authorship. I’ve quite a number of “I’m unsubscribing from your feed” comments on some blogs after being sold or after changing authors.

But then the point here is not to keep things static, is it? The great thing about a changing of the guard (so to speak) is that the incoming blogger or editor of a blog can make changes for the better. You don’t have to try too hard to become the blogger that once handled a blog that you inherit. You should establish your own voice and identity.

And to answer yet another question, yes network bloggers are sometimes like magazine editors.

One of the main differences between professional bloggers and journalists (and this is never highlighted) is that bloggers have that extra task of plotting a the direction, voice, and focus of his site. This is what differentiates a good problogger from a so-so one.

Whew, that’s a big responsibility!

b5media has recently announced that it has broken the 200 blog count mark. In the press release (while quite strange for a network that publishes blogs, is surely a welcome thing), b5medial lauds how it has grown from five blogs in 2005 to a strong 200 today.

CEO Jeremy Wright cites one difference in how they approach blogging.

“Rather than forcing people to drink from the fire hose — blogs that
produce 10 to 15 posts a day — we believe it’s better and easier for
readers if they can go to blogs to quickly get the information they want.
It’s an approach that has clearly resonated with many people given our
network attracts more than three million unique visitors a month.”

b5media says the network is just starting to gain serious momentum, and has “several strategic initiatives in the pipeline that will jump-start growth in a serious way.”

UK-based Shiny Media has recently launched four new blogs aimed at the UK market. Andy Merrett reports via the Blog Herald the launch of Available for Panto, Lost Weekend, Kerching.tv and My Chemical Toilet.

Available for Panto is a blog about reality TV, including popularity contest type shows. Lost Weekend, meanwhile, is all about guy stuff. Kerching, as the name suggests, is about money and finance. Chemical Toilet, meanwhile, is about European festivals.

Andy promises a strong British flavour, injected with strong opinion and good humour, and of course your occassional misspellings (mind the “u” everyone!).

Tony Hung reacts over at Deep Jive Interests to a recent NY Times article on blogging as possibly the next in profession among connected individuals. While the NY Times article highlights blogging–or actually problogging–as a novel new way of earning, Tony stresses the importance of offshoring opportunities for blogging.

The topic of moving creative content off-shore is a topic that hasn’t yet reached any kind of critical mass amongst bloggers, but I predict it one day will. The NYT article, for example, mentions how its possible that some bloggers are making somewhere in the range of $250 per month as an average. Yep — certainly hard to live off of. Even if you’re working at, let’s say 10 of these such blogs a month, earning $2500 can be a meagre set of earnings for the amount of work that it requires.

But what if you live in a place where the cost of living is low — and, I mean *really* low, compared to the United States?

And what happens if you live in a place where English just happens to be an official language?

Tony argues that blogging may not exactly be a fulfilling occupation and profession in terms of earnings. But that’s just so when you happen to come from an affluent region or country. Sure, $250 per blog per month is small change. However, if you come from a region where the cost of living is significantly lower, then blogging or writing content for blogs might be a good career path.

Tony says blog networks these days are sure to have some part of their staff or writers from countries like India and the Philippines. So the offshoring trend is not just in office-related business processes like accounting and customer relations, it’s also in blogging.

And as for the content? I know there is a prevailing perception that quality of customer relations personnel from outside of the US or other more affluent regions may not be at par with locals when it comes to practical use of the language (like “English” is not really equivalent to “American”). Tony believes that when it comes to the more creative aspects of the language–such as writing, and even blogging, for instance–offshored bloggers are up to the challenge.

I think the answer is more nuanced if you look at blogging from a global point of view. And I think that for bloggers who are being paid in American dollars, the answer is a more convincing yes for those living in places where the standard of living is lower — and they get a higher return on their time and effort. Certainly with respect to quality — of writing, of work, of effort — my experience is that they’re *at least* on par with their North American counter parts.

Splashpress Media’s new media site 901am.com has recently launched a localized version for the Japanese market. In its announcement, it cites the prevalence of Japanese as the most used language for blogging in the latest report by Technorati.

901am explains that the translation is done by Ioix, and not automated translation tools. Ioix is also the company that runs the Blog Herald’s Japanese counterpart.

This is not a simple case of running 901am through any automatic translation websites. Ioix is humanly translating 901am.com’s important posts into Japanese.

Automatic translation has been considered to be lacking solution because of context problems. 901am and the Blog Herald both believe that human translation is a better way to reach out to more audiences who are not necessarily English speakers/readers.