Our sister site The Blog Herald reports that Technorati has just purchased Blogcritics.org, a diverse blog network and “an online magazine, a community of writers and readers from around the globe.”

The Blog Herald writes:

Blogcritics publishes submissions from bloggers within their own specialty. With over 70k articles and 2k contributors, the site receives approximately 1 million unique monthly visitors.

Blogcritics will be incorporated into its Technorati Media division.

Read the full news item.

We’ve just received a press release from Instablogs:

NEW YORK, NY. August 19, 2008– Instablogs today announced that it is opening its blog network membership by launching the Instablogs Club.

By opening its network, external blogs can now apply to become members of Instablogs Club and enjoy the benefits that its blog network members have been enjoying.

“We decided to open our network to external bloggers so that they can also enjoy some of our network benefits, including but not limited to traffic, ad sales, technology, and networking with our great members,” Ankit Maheshwari, CEO of Instablogs, said.

“The Instablogs Club consists of those who host and maintain independent blogs and would like to avail our platform and showcase their content to millions of Instablogs readers each month. Our aim is to showcase the best blogs on a variety of topics and help bloggers get more exposure,” he added.

The Club is looking for bloggers who are passionate about their blog– one that provides compelling content, consistent in his or her frequency of posting, and is willing to share their knowledge and expertise to other members of the Club.

Club members stand to benefit from Instablogs traffic, revenues, and a vibrant community of blog network members.

Launched in 2005, Instablogs Blog Network enjoys more than 2 million page views per month. The Club will work to drive traffic to each member and benefit from this attention.

The Club will also assist its members earn through its interactive advertising sales team that will monetize each member’s inventory. This way, members can focus on blogging and earn on the side.

The Club is currently accepting applications and will be announcing its first batch of members next month. Interested bloggers may apply online at http://www.instablogs.com/instablogs-club/.

Splashpress Media, the blog network which owns Blog Network Watch is one of the sponsors for the upcoming WordCamp Philippines, the first such event to be held in the Southeast Asian nation.

The Philippines is one of the strongest blogging countries in the world, and Splashpress Media works with quite a number of high-profile Filipino probloggers, writers, and web developers. The list includes its Editor-in-Chief J. Angelo Racoma and its Head of Programming, Sophia Lucero. It’s high time that the said nation experienced its own WordCamp, and SPM is very much happy to take part in it.

Read the SPM press release here; learn more about WordCamp Philippines here.

We received this press release from the Green Options network:

Green Options Media launched its 15th blog today, The Inspired Economist. Focused on “green” and conscious business, The Inspired Economist highlights the matrix of economic and social trends transforming capitalism, and the individuals and companies applying passion and innovation to economic and environmental challenges.We’re focused on what’s working in terms of sustainability and social justice in the business world.

Visit the new blog here.

One week after blog network Splashpress Media launched Performancing Ads, the young ad marketplace has reached a couple of milestones already:

1. Over 1300 blogs and websites added

2. Over 450 ads created and booked

3. Thousands of dollars in advertiser buys

The platform is being billed as the “ultimate advertising solution for both blog publishers and advertisers.” Read the Splashpress announcement here.

We have added the College Money Network to our watchlist. From their About page:

[A] group of personal finance blogs run by college students, grad students, and recent grads. We have come together to bring you the best content possible to help college students and recent grads improve their finances in college and after college. While we all write about personal finance, we come from diverse backgrounds, and each one of us has our own unique perspective and voice.

CMN currently consists of seven blogs.

Visit the College Money Network here.

The latest announcement from the Gawker Media network reads:

With a subtle peak, July 2008 surpassed the previous all-time traffic record (January’s MacWorld spike) to set a brand new record of 254 million monthly pageviews! For benchmarking against other publishers, that’s twice what the Los Angeles Times’ site LATimes.com received in July (source: Editor & Publisher). With growth over May and June at just over 6% each month, Gawker Media has resumed an aggressive but normalized upward trend.

This confirms the results of Bloggasm’s Simon Owens’ earlier research, which showed that the network’s new pay rates are having a great effect on traffic.

AOL has launched a new site, just after the recent shutting down of their other properties due to budgetary constraints. The blog, Fanaticos falls under AOL’s Latino division. As Blog Herald reports:

The Spanish-language blog covers football/soccer, baseball and boxing from the United States, Mexico, Latin America and Spain. Nine sports bloggers comprise the editorial launch team.

Visit the new blog here.

Syntagma Media’s John Evans has published an article on the recent hardships endured by blog networks, which are tied to the economic downturn.

So what has the title of our post got to do with that? Well, that’s Evans’ answer to a timely question: What to do if you’ve invested heavily in an internet business, such as a blog network?

Evans writes:

Providing content on your own platform as both writer and publisher makes sense because it cuts costs. Hiring other writers to do it for you made sense three years ago, but with advertisers shunning small-to-medium operations it’s probably easier to flip burgers.

Now we need a second bounce to reflate the whole business of working successfully online.

Read the full post at Syntagma.

The Blog Herald, one of the Net’s prime sources for blogosphere news and tips, has just undergone a sweet redesign, courtesy of Thord Daniel Hedengren.

Quoting TDH’s announcement:

The new design brings the content back in focus, which should mean a better flow and a more natural reading experience. We’ve got a simple top menu to make sure that you can dive into any main area of the site at any time, and the latest stories listed in traditional blog behaviour.

The Blog Herald is owned by Splashpress Media.