Why Compete With Gawker and Weblogs, Inc.
Eoghann asks a great question in reference to my post yesterday asking whether or not anyone could compete with the two powerhouses. He says:
Both of those organizations have developed a system which works extremely well for them. Trying to compete directly would be like taking on Sony in the game console arena. And you’ll notice how difficult even Microsoft has found that.
Instead of focusing on competing with the “industry giants†what you should be doing is working to create your own format and system. Something that works for you. One of the great things about the internet in general and blogs in particular is that amazing variety of ways that information can be presented and deployed.
Yes the great thing about blogs is that variety is smiled upon and it’s okay to have a blog that covers the same stuff as other blogs. My web design blog didn’t necessarily touch upon new topics, but did offer a new perspective which helped it become one of the most popular blogs in that niche. The CSS Vault wasn’t anything new in what it did, but for some reason it did it better than most of the competition and it became the #1 site in its niche.
Gawker and Weblogs, Inc have great sites in their arsenal along with some questionable ones. My point really wasn’t whether someone could create the exact same sites and compete with them, but if anyone else could create a large and successful blogging network like those two. I think there is a major opportunity for someone else to come in. Heck Calacanis and I talk frequently and he thinks 12 more people could enter this market.
The reason I bring up the question is because I am wondering if anyone else is seeing what I am seeing. I see some major holes in the revenue models of both these companies. My thoughts will become more apparent once I get my project off the ground. I can’t say that what I have in mind is anything complex or world changing, but it does address some of the issues that I see are problems with Gawker and Weblogs, Inc.
On another note if you look at the redesign that Gizmodo has done it seems that they have killed their blog format. The content is still great, but it is getting lost in all the ads. Also the majority of the graphical ad space seems to advertise the other Gawker properties. Seems as though they can’t sell all their ad inventory. This is just pure speculation on my part and does not mean that Mr. Denton still isn’t making a caseload of money.
I mean the site goes through 230k people a day. You realize how much money you can make off of 6 million pageviews a month?
Though let me stop talking about this because I could be trying to do the stupidest thing in the world. But let’s say I am taking what is great about Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker and trying to fix the things that I see wrong with them. Isn’t that how you compete against the competition?
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POSTED IN: Personal Thoughts
4 opinions for Why Compete With Gawker and Weblogs, Inc.
Eoghann Irving
Mar 1, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Damn, I hadn’t visited Gizmodo directly since they re-vamped. I usually just browse via Bloglines. That is one ugly site now.
It’s also a shocking waste of screen real-estate since neither of their ad columns go more than a third of the way down the long long page. So most of my reading on that page wouldn’t expose me to their advertising at all.
Jason Marble
Mar 2, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Yes, that is how you compete :-)
It is very easy to build a media empire like Gawker. Not to say it doesn’t take a lot of work. As for yourself, Scrivs, you are doing an excellent job. As long as you keep pushing yourself and continue to pump out quality sites, you will be successfull. I’d say the only thing Gawker or Weblogs Inc. has on you is a head start, and a good one I might add, haha. But where they will fall behind to anyone else is through their mistakes.
Look at MySpace’s recent success. They are going to dominate their market very soon, if not already. They’ve went live not even two years ago. But I will guarantee you someone else will take the market lead after MySpace does. Why? Because MySpace… well… just take a look, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
There are so many more examples I could talk about.
Gawker? Weblogs Inc.? Come on. They might be market leaders right now, but there is plenty of room to compete.
clint
Mar 3, 2005 at 1:38 pm
You talk about whitespace in the past tense. Does that mean it is dead?
Scrivs
Mar 3, 2005 at 3:10 pm
No it isn’t dead by any means. Actually MT on that server is totally hosed so I can’t even access it. That’s the problem with Whitespace currently :-)
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