28th
Taking Stock: Analysis of the Top 5 Technology Blogs
I’ve been thinking about this all week, and with the wife away for the weekend and yours truly on the lam, I’ve got a little extra time write on a Sunday morning.
Caveats: this is a work in progress. See something that stands correcting? Have information that I don’t? Lemme know here. Also, for the most part, I’m focusing on the parent properties, not the satellite ones (likeTechCrunch IT or OStatic — that is grounds for another post).
Also, I’ve put together this grid, which serves as sort of a competitive matrix. Two things that I’d love to add at some point are the average # of comments and average # of posts/day, but I don’t have the time to do the math right now, alas. There’s probably a way to do it with AideRSS or a similar service, though…
The talent acquisition and overall business strategies of the top tech blogs are markedly different, and lend themselves to a bit of further analysis. To begin, I’m defining “top tech blogs” as TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Mashable, and GigaOm. You could arguably put Ars Technica and CNET into that mix, but neither remain independent — CNET having been acquired by CBS, and Ars by Conde Nast.
Okay, let’s get started. GigaOm’s talent strategy clearly has acqusitions figuring as a major piece of the puzzle. Recent purchases of JK On The Run and The Apple Blog prove this out, and none of the other players have snapped up any other properties in recent memory (even though Arrington hasn’t been afraid of talking bullishly about consolidation). Om, who is himself trying to take it a bit easier these days for understandable reasons, has made some key hires like Stacey Higginbotham (away from The Deal) and is reportedly looking to bolster its ranks further. Stalwarts Liz Gannes, Katie Fehrenbacher, Craig Reubens and Carleen Hawn (among a few others) are still going strong, with people like Larry Chiang, and other occasional/bylined contributors providing some extra content. But Om said it best with the Apple Blog deal — “the world doesn’t need yet another Mac blog” — he isn’t interested in reinventing the wheel — and the properties that GigaOm has started, most recently Earth2Tech, NewTeeVee and OStatic, are filling niches that justify the extra attention.
Looking forward, GigaOm sees to have a philosophical focus on M&A, with a little bit of the farm system approach added in for good measure. Om writes semi-frequently, but has recently named a new CEO. The company is indeed expanding into the events business, with Mobilize, NewTeeVee Live, and Structure. GigaOm has scored a few of high-profile syndication deals with BusinessWeek and The New York Times.
PR pro’s takeaway: GigaOm remains among the very best, and the recent syndication deals and acquisitions are game-changers, make no mistake about it. A hit inGigaOm is suddenly worth a heck of a lot more in terms of potential eyeballs, and the BusinessWeek deal in particular is unique (RWW and VentureBeat have the same NYT deal). Expect GigaOm to continue to grow by M&A. And, if Om does hire another writer (or two) to join the staff of his eponymous flagship alongside Stacey Higginbotham, he’ll have the bandwidth to further capitalize on those distribution channels, which have helped spike GigaOm’s traffic over 4x compared to last year at this time.
Next up: Mashable. Mashable hasn’t been spinning off properties, nor has it scored a piece of the syndication pie/land-grab, something that I don’t think is even a goal for them (the ongoing, and laudable efforts of community organizer Tamar Weinberg and event planner Karen Hartline tell us that Mashable is following the $$ towards the events/party business instead). The blog has enough traffic to peg it as the #14 largest in the world per Technorati, but Mashable has always considered itself something of an outsider, a “TechCrunch for the flyover states” as one of its writers once told me — that is, tech news for the rest of us — people on the “use side” of the equation (as opposed to the “make side,” as it were). Just compare it’s Technorati ranking to its Techmeme Leaderboard ranking for evidence of this. Mashable’s talent strategy, with the lone exception of the hire of B-list superstar Steven Hodson, is entirely bottom up. From the beginning, Mashable has solicited new writers on its site, and continues to add contributors (almost all part-time) at a torrid pace. Mashable isn’t looking to hire brand names — only subject matter experts who can fill gaps in their coverage. Current workhorses/editor-writers Mark Hopkins, Adam Ostrow, Sean Aune, Stan Schroeder and Paul Glazowski have in large part risen to fame during their time with Mashable, even though each had been successfully blogging (and/or podcasting) since long before their days with the pub. Notable as well is that although Mashable’s beautiful site redesign effectively highlights different content categories, Pete Cashmore isn’t yet abandoning the single-property, firehose approach (better filtering notwithstanding).
To generalize, Mashable = a crowdsourcing tack, with a larger volume of contributors (by far) than any of the others on our list, and an accordingly large amount of content. With the exception of Steve Hodson, there is a de-emphasis on name-brand talent, and a focus on either a.) new, scrappy faces, or b.) established subject-matter experts with the time to write 1-2 posts a week on a given, standing topic area/niche. CEO Pete Cashmore rarely writes, instead focusing on the business side of Mashable. The company hasn’t yet thrown any conference-y events, but has quickly developed a reputation for throwing incredible parties, fresh off of its Summer Tour, which, given some back-of-the-napkin sort of calculations, was lucrative. But, even though Mashable’s 1MM monthly uniques are second only to TechCrunch, their growth (still at a respectable 40%) is the slightest of the group.
PR pro’s takeaway: Mashable remains a favorite, in no small part because of their down-to-earth attidude and consumer/mainstream appeal (there’s a little inside baseball from time to time, but it’s rare). With Mashable, your experience is going to be different depending on the writer with whom you work — with so many to choose from, good matchmaking is key. I haven’t met writer over there that I don’t like, but they are each quite different in character and approach, moreso than the other blogs on this list. Mashable also seems to have an additional and unexpected side benefit for this writer’s clients — an SEO boost that for whatever reason (I’m no expert here) trumps its competitors. In general, too, Mashable is pro-PR — provided, you don’t, well…suck, natch.
Now, VentureBeat is especially interesting because Matt Marshall has been on a hiring binge, and it looks not to stop anytime soon. (Relatively) new faces to the VentureBeat ranks include Kristen Nicole (freshly departed from Mashable, though notably, Mashable’s writers don’t usually have exclusive deals), MG Siegler (of B-list superstar fame from his days focusing on ParisLemon), Jeremy Jacquot (formerly of TreeHugger) and Dean Takahashi (from the SJ Merc). Add these writers in with standbys Eric Eldon, Anthony Ha, Dan Kaplan and Chris Morrison, and VentureBeat has perhaps the most experienced staff of any on the list. And this group is no doubt the reason that the site’s traffic has doubled over the last year. VentureBeat has just recently expanded into the conference/events biz with MobileBeat, which by all measures was successful. VentureBeat hasn’t yet spun out any official sister properties, but has instead chosen to more formally develop its channel strategy, including Digital Media, LifeScience, CleanTech and Mobile/Com, in addition to its core strength of VC-related reporting across the board. The blog, in look, feel, and tone, still carries Matt’s newspaper heritage, and with GigaOm (no surprise given Om’s own background) is the most “journalistic” of the bunch — which is admittedly a loaded term/philosophical battle that I won’t get into here…
To generalize, VentureBeat hasn’t been afraid to hire ahead of traffic — Matt Marshall is building it and they are indeed coming (and Matt, like Mike Arrington, is still very much a mainstay of the editorial staff). Venturebeat also boasts the most syndication deals of the bunch, including the San Jose Mercury News, The Industry Standard, Greentech Media and The New York Times. Their events business if young and unproven, if promising. Right now, the focus is on reporting, and it seems to be working well.
PR pro’s takeaway: Venturebeat has expanded well beyond the core VC beat that it’s name implies, and as such is on a strong growth curve that looks to escalate. The talent onboard portends very good things for the future. Coverage in VentureBeat still has great influence with it’s venture capitalists, and so with TechCrunch is a primary target for anyone seeking funding. But now we’re also seeing leadership on numerous fronts, including Apple, the Semantic Web, mobile/LBS and others — and it’s clear that Matt and team aim to go head-to-head withTechCrunch and GigaOm on news delivery for the foreseeable future. The blog’s syndication deals up the ante even further, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see even more top talent join in the next 3-6 months — Matt is clearly running a near-break even operation and it’s going to be fun to see how far they can go, especially with their leader’s own rolodex, which at times delivers scoops that no doubt make Arrington seeth.
Wow this is a long post. Stay with me!
Second to last is ReadWriteWeb, which has also benefitted from a meteoric rise (the highest percentage increase YoY in this group), which can be largely attributed to a “zag” strategy — the blog focuses much more on analysis than news, and has striving to own what it considers core coverage areas (read: opportunities for differentiation) such as the Semantic Web. Each of the top blogs does strong, in-depth analysis and insight pieces, but RWW is unique in uncovering stories and trends and publishing thought-provoking pieces that resonate and simultaneously speak to higher-level industry/market movements and more granular, on-the-ground, “how to” content. The blog does have additional properties such as Last100 (digital lifestyle) and AltSearchEngines, but it is unclear whether these experiments, despite some interim success, are part of any longer-term strategy. ReadWriteWeb has also been successful in its hiring efforts — luring former TechCrunch writer and then-SplashCast employee Marshall Kirkpatrick into the fold (and then making him VP of Content ), as well as landing The Last Podcast’s Frederic Lardinois to replace the departing Josh Catone, and bringing B-list standouts Sarah Perez and Corvida Raven (two of the most promising writers in tech right now). This is not to mention occasional/regular contributions from Bernard Lunn, Alex Iskold, and Emre Soluku. RWW is doing some unique things too with its content — with RWW Live and RWW Predictions, for example, the blog is experimenting with new and interesting ways of engaging with its audience on, again, a more analytical level. And with Mainstream Web Watch, another regular feature, the blog is also doing an admirable job of looking outside of the bubble we collectively inhabit. RWW also recently joined VentureBeat and GigaOm as outlets syndicated by the New York Times.
ReadWriteWeb has a very interesting mix of name-brand talent, and up-and-comers, and overall has a reputation for creating some of the smartest content on the Web. Unlike Venturebeat or Mashable, however, the blog does not seem to be looking to expand (either in terms of number of writers or number of posts), preferring to keep a stronger signal-to-noise ratio, and forgo comprehensiveness in favor of core competencies/expertise in certain areas (lifestreaming/microblogging, search, social media/PR/marketing, Semantic Web/AI, etc.) There are not yet any conference/events efforts to speak of, and the business side is seemingly the lightest of the bunch, with RichardMacManus running the show and servicing the content side in a primarily editorial capacity. That Richard is writing less these days is lamentable — he is one of the Web’s great journalistic talents.
PR pro’s takeaway: RWW is also very PR-friendly, and is a great place for anyone to explore “the story behind the story”. They will always have a backbone of news, but their editorial strategy allows them to pursue developments that others might not. RWW is also one of my favorite places to look for information to help me do my own job better. It is going to be very interesting to see how RWW performs over the long term — I think that they are only beginning to get a sense of the market for their stuff — although analysis has always been hard to monetize, RWW seems to have struck a nerve. They’re also an innovator in terms of evolving Web journalism generally — see Marshall’s DEMOspring ‘08 Toolkit as a prime example. MacManus has an extremely bright staff that is going to continue to create new opportunities for itself — something that will serve them well as TechCrunch, GigaOm, VentureBeat, and to an extent Mashable continue to go head-to-head on news.
And last but not least — TechCrunch. TechCrunch is really the reason for this post in the first place, because their talent strategy is fascinating. Michael did indeed recruit A-listers Erick Schonfeld and Steve Gillmor, as well as B-lister Duncan Riley (who has since left to start The Inquisitr) to anchor the team. But the overall strategy seems to look not unlike a minor league baseball farm system — Nick Gonzalez (since departed to SocialMedia), Don Reisinger, Jason Kincaid, Mark Hendrickson, Dan Kimerling , Henry Work and others are all homegrown talent — most started as interns, started as hybrid writer/programmers, or otherwise have worked their way up, sleeping on Michael’s legendary couch if and as necessary. As the #2 blog in the world, there’s no question that TechCrunch could afford to splurge on more seasoned talent. But as one of my mentors once revealed to me as one of his top 5 keys to success: it’s often better to hire people who are smart, and talented and teach them the job, as opposed to looking within a pool of people who already know the job, but that are also exhibit the intangibles that you’re looking for. Plus, TechCrunch has an increasingly large business organization, which doesn’t come cheaply. Arrington has made it clear many a time that he has grand ambitions, and the combination of talented, motivated, and cost-effective editorial talent alongside some heavy-hitting dealmakers and operations people is clearly a strategic decision.
In general, TechCrunch is likely to maintain its leadership position for the foreseeable future, but the day-to-day involvement of Michael Arrington is key — his contacts, instincts, and drive power the TechCrunch regime, period. It’s a very interesting property, because despite many efforts to scale, Arrington is the one part of their business that cannot. The success of the likes of Hendrickson and Kincaid and Reisinger is more important that anyone might let on, though Arrington and Schonfeld continue to do a wonderful job of bringing along new prospects, as it were (and themselves remain at the very top of the game). TechCrunch is still, for good reason, the go-to property for technology news, and a recent trend towards in-depth analysis is welcome. The property’s syndication deal with the Washington Post only bolsters a blog that sees more traffic than its closest competitor, Mashable, by about 400K uniques/month, a huge margin.
PR pro’s takeaway: TC is still the be-all and end-all of coverage — its huge readership lends Arrington and company a great amount of power and social capital, which they are only in the early phases of cashing in on. They drive huge amounts of traffic to any company’s website, and they get more comments than any of their competitors by a wide margin — that conversation is what can help news travel far beyond TC’s pages. TechCrunch is generally great to work with, provided that you are clear and transparent and can successfully navigate the competitive issues involved (in fact, to be fair, this is the same for all five blogs). Because it acts as such a powerful gatekeeper/kingmaker, however, approachingTechCrunch prematurely isn’t a good idea. In the same way that you really can’t undo a bad review by Walt Mossberg, you don’t want to find yourself on the receiving end of a negative write-up in TC. I often find that TC’s younger writers are more accessible — they’re just as discerning as Arrington and Schonfeld , but their relatively formative position in the industry means that there’s a greater chance to develop a long-term relationship, as opposed to merely executing a transactional exchange.
Summary:
There is still torrid growth among all of the top five technology blogs. We’re starting to see some real differentiation (as compared with a year ago), with Mashable and ReadWriteWeb carving out clear niches for themselves. It’s still a three-way rat race between TechCrunch, VentureBeat and GigaOm for the Valley-centric news business, and and among those three the talent acquisition strategies differ markedly. The growth rates across the board indicate that the market for tech news is still expanding. Once the flurry of syndication deals dies down, I think that we’ll stop seeing such huge YoY traffic increases, but it is clear that each of the 5 have the opportunity to run stable and profitable businesses (in stark contrast to, for example, the newspaper industry, our favorite whipping-boy). It’s still early days, even if it doesn’t seem like it.
