technology

The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over. Not a Chance!

By Mark Evans in Blogs 1 Comment Tags: , ,

Apparently, the “golden age” of tech blogging is over. Yup, that’s it. Just six years after blogging caught fire, Jeremiah Owyang has declared tech blogging has arrived at a sad juncture.

It has something to do with a few large tech blogs (TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and Engadget) being acquired, several burnt-out bloggers (Ben Parr, Marshall Kirkpatrick, etc.) leaving for greener pastures, shorter attention spans among consumers, and new business models that make it more difficult for tech bloggers to carve out a living.

You have to give Owyang credit for publishing a post with a catchy headline during a slow news week, but I’ll politely take issue with his thesis. While it has been amazing to see such vibrant and extensive coverage of technology over the past years, how does Owyang know it was the “golden age”?

What we’ve seen is thousands of new players offer extensive coverage of a fast-moving industry. Having written about tech since 1995, it has been great to see so much activity for a sector that I’ve been so enthusiastic about and involved in.

But just because a few large blogs get acquired, which I think spawned Owyang’s thesis, doesn’t mean tech blogging landscape is dramatically changing or it’s entering a less interesting or lucrative period.

Change is Constant

The realty about technology is change is constant. Nothing stays the same or lasts forever. Companies come and go, blogs emerge out of nowhere and then disappear. Tech analysts become big stars, and then fade in the background. It’s the nature of the beast.

Rather than buying into the idea, the “golden age” has come to an end, I think the tech blogging market is evolving after a terrific run. It’s natural to see some more large blogs be acquired because success attracts higher valuations, which rewards entrepreneurs for all their hard work.

It’s completely understandable that some high-profile bloggers are moving on given the pressure of having to generate multiple posts a day because the business models of many large blogs hinge on volume, volume and more volume.

And shouldn’t be surprising to see business models evolve but, truth be told, most bloggers don’t blog to make money, and those who do will find new ways to generate revenue.

Another Golden Age?

Finally, there will be a new breed of tech blogs that will replace the old guard and revitalize the tech blogosphere. They will approach the market with new energy, enthusiasm and ideas, which could create another “golden age” of tech blogging.

That’s the funny thing about the tech world – just when you think nothing could top what has unfolded, it just keeps on getting better.

Given the time of year, perhaps Owyang is feeling sentimental about the “good old days” of blogging but as someone who has been hammering away here since 2004, I can tell you that blogs come and go, stars are made and flame out, and tech blogging has never stayed in one place too long.

How to Compete With Big-Time Tech Blogs

By Mark Evans in Blogs 4 Comments Tags: , ,

In a word: don’t.

Going head to head with major tech blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and GigaOm is a fools’ game. They have too many people at their beck and call, they pump out way to much content, and they’re far more connected.

In other words, trying to compete against them as a go-to resource is madness.

So how can us regular bloggers be topical, timely and relevant to people looking for insight and information? Here’s a few tips:

1. Don’t jump on the bandwagon. When news breaks (e.g. the launch of Google+), you know there’s going to be a tsunami of blog and traditional media coverage as everyone decides to provide some kind of opinion. Rather than joining the fray, stay away.

2. Take a deep breath, wait a few hours or perhaps a few days, and then write a post that benefits from having time to think. This lets you provide new or different perspective that has a better chance of standing out from the crowd.

A good example is a post I did on HootSuite’s surpassing two million users. Rather than writing about this benchmark, I took a different approach with a post suggesting HootSuite was Canada’s biggest online success story. Even though the post appeared a day after the news broke, it attracted a lot of attention.

3. Write against the grain. When everyone is blogging about Google+, it might more sense to focus on another topic that is getting less attention.

4. Be true to the things that interest you as opposed to chasing the news. If you’re focused on a particular topic, stay focused rather than shifting gears. This lets you do what you do best and, as important, meet the needs of your readers.

5. Be happy, don’t worry. Don’t worry if you’re not blogging about the new, shiny thing capturing all the attention. There’s so much happening that it’s okay to say “pass” until a story that really interests you comes along.

RIP, Typewriter

By Mark Evans in Main Page No Comments Tags: , ,

TypewriterThe summer before I started to study journalism at university, I spent hours in the basement of my parent’s house learning how to type on a manual typewriter. To graduate, you had to type so many words a minute so the pressure was on to get proficient as soon as possible.

It seems like a long time ago but even more so now that Godrej and Boyce has announced it will stop making typewriters. The Indian-based company is apparently the last typewriter manufacturer in the world.

When the typewriter does disappear, it will likely be a technology that few people will miss or be nostalgic about. It must be like how people felt when the car replaced the horse and buggy. In a few years, people will look at typewriters in museums as strange and antiquated equipment.

For more details, check out the Daily Mail.

The End of TechCrunch As We Know It

By Mark Evans in Blogs, M&A 2 Comments Tags: , , ,

With 24 hours to think about it, the sale of TechCrunch to AOL strikes me as a head-scratcher, even though TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington says it make complete sense. Of all the potential suitors, AOL would not have been on my list. Instead, it would have been headed by a digital publishers such as CNet or one of the large newspaper publishers such as the New York Times or Washington Post looking for a deeper digital presence.

The rise of TechCrunch into one of the technology industry’s most influential players is an amazing story. Started by Arrington, it was just one of many technology blogs battling for attention at a time when the technology market was just starting to re-emerge after the dot-com boom went bust. TechCrunch wasn’t an immediate smash-hit but Arrington’s energy and connections started to make it a must-read. In time, TechCrunch expanded with other Web sites and conferences, while Arrington became an active player in the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

While Robert Scoble suggests TechCrunch’s sales is the end of an era in tech blogging, it’s far more accurate to suggest it’s the end of an era for TechCrunch. Tech blogging will continue with existing players getting stronger, and new players emerging.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch will, no doubt, become a different creature. Sure, Arrington is going to stay involved with TechCrunch but the reality is it’s difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the same kind of involvement when you’re an employee rather than an entrepreneur putting your heart and soul into growing a business. While Arrington will be a good AOL employee for awhile, he’s an entrepreneur who will be lured by other activities and interests.

In time, TechCrunch’s influence will change as well. As much as TechCrunch has a large following, Arrington is the driving force behind what makes TechCrunch different from GigaOm, VentureBeat, Mashable and ReadWriteWeb. He is the TechCrunch brand.

Rather than being the end of an era for tech blogging, the landscape will start to shift and evolve. TechCrunch will likely remain a popular destination but the tech blogging landscape could become a more interesting place now that TechCrunch is part of AOL. With change comes opportunity – maybe even a new Arrington-like blogger with big dreams, great writing skills and a knack for self-promotion.

Not everyone may be a fan of Arrington but you have to give him huge credit for building TechCrunch into an online publishing powerhouse. As TechCrunch moves forward with a new owner, it will interesting to see how TechCrunch changes and, as important, how readers view the new TechCrunch.

Is the High-Tech IPO Really Back?

By Mark Evans in M&A, Venture Capital No Comments Tags: , , ,

The high-tech IPO is a mysterious beast. It’s attractive, seductive and irresistible. But it’s also fickle, temperamental and not always well-behaved. Still, investors have a difficult time resisting the high-tech IPO even when the fundamentals aren’t solid or even exist.

In the coming months, it looks like investors will get another opportunity to test their obsession with the high-tech IPO as companies such as Skype and Hulu prepare for public offerings. If these IPOs are successful – and there’s plenty of indication they will be enthusiastically received – it could open the floodgates for all kinds of IPOs.

The question facing investors is whether Hulu and Skype are anomalies, or whether the high-tech IPO has really come back from the dead. Hulu and Skype are solid well-established businesses with revenue, subscribers and track records. They are market leaders in markets experiencing rapid growth, which makes them strong IPO candidates.

These are the kind of IPOs that, frankly, were few and far between during the dot-com boom when anything with traction was sucked into the IPO machine. Of course, many of these IPOs bombed because the companies that did them were more projects than businesses.

As much as Skype and Hulu have investors excited, I’m concerned they are the cream of the crop, and that the high-tech IPO landscape is pretty limited. For all the talk about how costs are lower so high-tech businesses can get started with less capital, the reality is the business landscape is dominated by free and freemium. This makes the marketplace volatile and uncertain because there are competitors willing to charge little or nothing to attract customers.

The companies that succeed in attracting users and revenue will no doubt be attractive and could do an IPO if they’re not acquired but how many of these kind of companies actually exist? Probably not as many as you would think.

But the other reality is there’s a lot of venture capital that has been tied up in start-ups. The VCs sense an opportunity to cash out so there will be tremendous pressure on start-ups to do an IPO. This could lead to a glut of public offerings, including many companies that probably don’t have solid enough fundamentals.

If investors should remember anything from the past decade, it’s caveat emptor because not everything with a pretty IPO bow on them is going to have a wonderful present inside.

For more on the IPO landscape, check out this story in the Financial Post.

Life Before Smartphones?

By Mark Evans in Main Page 2 Comments Tags: , ,

As I was leaving a downtown meeting yesterday, I saw a women running a hot dog cart. That in and of itself wasn’t interesting but what caught my eye was that she was intently checking her smartphone, oblivious to the hustle and bustle around her.

It got me thinking about what life was like before smartphones? How did we fill in the small gaps between meetings, during coffee breaks or lunch, waiting in line-ups for groceries or movies, commuting or stuck in traffic?

Today, many people instantly reach for their smartphones to check e-mail, watch videos, surf the Web or play games. While these devices are terrific, what’s been lost in the process? Are we reading fewer newspapers? Are we reading fewer newspapers? Are we spending less think time just thinking with no distractions?

There is a price to be paid for using a smartphone because the time it consumes means that something else has to give. For the gains they offer, there is also a balancing loss.

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