Mark Evans

Business 2.0 Gets Blog Happy

Business 2.0 is jumping hard on the blogging bandwagon with 16 new blogs. Why the big leap? Business 2.0's Eric Schonfeld said “primarily because we think blogging will make us better journalists.  Blogging about a subject on a daily basis is a great way to become an expert on that subject and stay in front of the news in that particular niche.” Well, that's a nice idealistic view of the world, isn't it. Truth be told, Business 2.0 has a couple challenges: it needs to establish a stronger Web presence at a time when more people are getting information from the Web, and it needs a way to get more out of its reporters/writers. What better way for a monthly magazine to do both than launching blogs. It certainly beats having your writers “toil” away on a single feature for several weeks (disclosure: this is partly envy from a former daily newspaper grunt!). In theory, the idea of reporters writing blogs is terrific because it does provide another way for newspapers and magazines to engage their audience in a new and different way. The problem, however, is good blogs and good bloggers require passion, commitment and energy.  In other words, not everyone is going to be an Om Malik or Mathew Ingram. As a result, it's far from a slamdunk that every reporter will bring passion and commitment to the table if they're suddenly told to start writing blogs because their employer's suddenly realize they need to embrace the Web in a bigger way. You have to remember newsrooms are shrinking as newspapers and magazine try to realign their economic models to account for lower advertising and circulation. As a result, reporters are doing more and more work so asking them to also write a blog is a tough trick to pull off. That said, I think this will not be a problem for the next generation of reporters, who will come in knowing that writing, podcasting, video-blogging and doing quick hits for the Web are part of the job description. In the meantime, look for newspaper and magazine blogs to be hit and miss experiences. For more, check out Frank Barnako and Deep Jive Interests.