Signaling A Retreat From Multi-Author Blogs
I unwittingly set off a firestorm of comments on my post about the impact of Google’s PageRank shift and my (mumbling) musings how it might affect traffic generating efforts like blog carnivals (see Is the link party over?).
by cromacom
But as I read more and more on the subject - one thing became increasingly clear. PageRank doesn’t really matter any more. Hear hear. I rarely ever checked my blog’s PageRank and care even less about PageRanks of the blogs that I read and link to frequently.
by Murfomurf
But amidst all the navel-gazing (bloggers talking to bloggers about blogging) that Google’s move provoked, a few more sacred cows in blogging have started to be questioned as well. One oft-touted maxim is that posting often is the secret to blogging success.
Marketing Profs wrote a stellar post challenging this widely held view on Why Blog Post Frequency Does Not Matter Anymore. To sum up:
What will matter more and more is what you write and how you engage, not how often you write. As the blogosphere matures, the measure of success will shift from traffic to reader loyalty.
The RSS subscriber count has become the new PageRank.
One tactic that’s been used often to build post frequency has been the creation of multi-author blogs. The equation seemed quite simple. More writers = more posts = greater search engine presence = more traffic.
Tech blogging is chock full of examples of multi-author blogs. Techcrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, etc.
The real estate blogosphere is no different, and the multi-author blog seems to have become the trend-de-jour (FOREM is guilty as charged). Perhaps this can all be traced back to Dustin Luther’s ground-breaking work building RainCityGuide.
But as this medium matures, personally I find myself retreating from multi-author blogs - simply because the volume of posts is far too frequent. I can’t keep up.
I surrender.
In many cases, multi-author blogs = more noise. And more noise seems to me to be contrary to building reader loyalty. How many times a day do I find myself J’ing through Google Reader or clicking Shift-A just to make all the new posts on some of these blogs go away?
Looking deeper at my own consumption habits (Google Reader’s Trends can tell you what you’ve reading), I find that more and more I’m being drawn back to the single voices; trying to find the authorities, the personalities, the perspective. In real estate, I’m drawn to the Jeff Corbetts (XBroker), Jonathan Millers (Matrix), Michael Wurzers (FBS Blog) and Jeff Turners (Turner’s Perspective). Outside this space, it’s the Seth Godins (Seth’s Blog), Jeff Jarvises (BuzzMachine) and Greg Sterlings (Screenwerk) that keep me coming back.
And that’s the heart of the problem I’m starting to think comes with multi-author blogs. They bury the individual voices.
That’s not to say there aren’t still some great voices to be found in multi-author blogs. But I sure wish there were a way to filter them out rather than having to sift through all the white noise.
by sonicdoubt
I’d love to be able just to get Mike Arrington’s perspective on TC or Marshall Kirkpatrick’s posts from RWW or Pete Cashmore’s contributions to Mashable for example and cut out all the rest.
To use a (loose) analogy - I’d liken many multi-author blogs right now to my local cable company. They’re bundling an awful lot of channels in my cable package that I don’t want.
One thing that would help if more multi-author blogs feeds aped the a la carte cable model (which is sadly lacking right now too), or like podcast subscriptions in iTunes. These blogs ought to clearly let me pick and choose the authors I want and bundle a unique feed for me based on my selections - not just stuff everything down a pipe at me.
Am I way off in my assessment? Has anyone else felt overwhelmed? I know Disruptive RE Broker does.
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Todd Carpenter | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
I held out for two years before adding contributors to my blog for exactly the same reason why you are backing away from them. They loose the authors voice.
However, adding contributors has helped lenderama two fold. One, after 600 some odd posts, it can be difficult to keep coming up with good content. At least for me. Adding contributors has brought a lot of fresh perspective to my blog. Two, the contributing authors have become my most frequent commentors, and have encouraged more commentors to post as well.
In retrospect, going solo for so long was a huge mistake for me. The biggest in my near 3 years of blogging.
Joseph Ferrara.sellsius | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Multi-author blogs have their advantages and disadvantages. Here’s our take on the subject “The Lights of Blogway:Deconstructing the Group Blog ”
http://tinyurl.com/2hhfva
Drew Meyers | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Joel-
I agree with most of this post — personalities are hugely important piece of blogging. Bloggers that don’t show personality just aren’t that interesting to me. And personalities I love (like Fred Wilson) are the blogs I read every day no matter what.
I do think there are lots of pluses to multi-author blogs (otherwise GeekEstate would not exist). Like Todd said, staying solo means A LOT of writing for him. And as you know, building an audience, which is the end goal for most blogs, is not easy. Perhaps that brings up the interesting point that, for the most INTERESTING blogs, drawing an audience is NOT the goal — and hence the reason the blog is interesting is because they are PASSIONATE about what they write about rather than writing for traffic.
Here’s an interesting problem for a developer to solve (maybe someone at Mybloglog) — create a feed of ALL the content that I create, no matter what blog it is on (MBL already knows the 4 blogs I contribute to).
Michael Wurzer | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Thanks, Joel. I’m humbled to be included on your list, especially among the others you note.
Daniel Rothamel | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Joel,
You have hit on some very important issues, and I agree with many of your opinions. As a contributor to a multi-author blog, and a writer of a solo blog, I have found that one thing that makes the multi-author blog difficult is the diversity of voices. While diversity is good, it can also make things confusing at times.
One thing that being on a multi-author blog has forced me to do is come up with ways of improving my posts so that they stand out as much as possible, while still fitting-in with the overall intent of the blog. One benefit to doing the multi and solo thing at the same time is that the themes of the two blogs are different enough that I divide up my subject matter. The posts that I write for AgentGenius are better suited for that blog, which is more focused on real estate agents, whereas I try to keep most of the stuff on Real Estate Zebra focused on consumers. There is always some bleed-through from one to the other. But they each provide a unique outlet.
Jeff Turner | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Joel… like Michael, I’m humbled as well. There’s a lot to chew on here.
Joel Burslem | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
@Drew - I think you’re right. It is about writing for passion not traffic. I suspect readers will continue to seek out and find those single sources who are passionate about what they write.
What I’m concerned about is that I see many multi-author blogs lately in this sort of arms race to add the most names and thumbnails to their contributor sidebars and in the end I find it just muddles the picture and becomes noise. Sad really because the good gets drowned out.
I think the point is if you have established yourself as someone who has something to say… it doesn’t matter if you say something everyday, even every week. People still listen. Once I’ve subscribed to you, you’re in my reader. I’ll wait till you have something interesting to say. It’s not about just cranking out content to fill a void.
Metrowest MA Real Estate | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Joel - I understand what you are saying in regards to having too many voices. There are places where there are some excellent pieces that get buried due to the fact that there are is too many hands in the pot. I enjoy coming to your site not only to see things from your perspective but also from others who see the value of visiting and commenting as well.
Prudential Locations | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
The consensus at SES San Jose was that PageRank doesn’t matter and that too many people spend too much time looking at the little green bar. Since Matt Cutts was in the audience nodding his head in agreement, I immediately stopped caring about the green bar.
Greg Swann | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
I don’t even see the complaint. All that matters is quality. The best “group” tech blog is TechMeme. Erik is a very valuable addition to tFoREM. He’s doing better work here than he did at RealtyThoughts. BloodhoundBlog is about to make a quantum leap in content, and we will continue to add contributors every time we can snag someone who can add to our arsenal. One of the things we gain from out structure — and this doesn’t work for every group blog — is a synergy among the contributors. Some people who write alone do a nice job, but most solo weblogs are soggy cornflakes, period. A strong group blog brings a big audience to writers who deserve a big audience. Either way, getting bogged down in issues of form is beside the point. What are you learning? How are you growing? That’s what matters.
Joseph Ferrara.sellsius | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Techmeme is NOT a group blog, silly.
Cari McGee | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
The only group blogs I read regularly are BHB and RCG, but I never feel that any of the voices contained therein get lost. The personalities are so strong, and so vibrant I immediately know who I’m reading. If you are compelling enough to be added to a group blog, you are compelling enough to be read and not get lost in the shuffle.
Jay Thompson | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Excellent points all around… I took three days away from the feed reader just last week and came back to almost 1,000 posts. I couldn’t catch up.
There are some blogs (group or not) that I enjoy reading immensely. But I simply can not keep up with Curbed’s 30 posts a day. Scoble lost me when he went on and on multiple times a day, day after day about nothing but the iPhone. And I haven’t been back since.
I write for GeekEstate because I enjoy writing about geeky real estate specific things that don’t always fit in well with my “home blog”. To be selfish, contributing there is more for me than for anyone that might happen to read it…
Posting frequency and reader loyalty are interesting subjects. Unless you are very talented and unique, it would be difficult to build much of an audience posting less frequently than once a week. And if you are talking about a local real estate blog, “reader loyalty” may just get thrown out the window. A very significant portion of my readers come from search engines — they are looking for something specific, they Google it, and hopefully land on what they are looking for. In the perfect world, they look around, say, “Hey this is cool” and bookmark it. They most likely don’t subscribe, but they keep peeking back in on occasion. When the time is ripe for them to buy or sell property, the theory is they come back to you. The reality is, enough do to make it worthwhile (though I’d blog even is no client knocked on the door. But I’m sick.)
andrew | Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Well said. MU blogs rarely have quality content.
Gerry Davidson | Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the much needed substantiation on remaining a solo blog. It is hard for me to write unless I have a subject I am really interested in or passionate enough about to launch a well researched position. As a result I don’t necessarily post every day. There is a huge difference in how I feel after posting something I know is worthy of a reader’s time.
As a solo act the hardest thing is to engage readers to respond. As Todd Carpenter noted, a blog’s co-authors are often first responders to the conversation, often encouraging others to comment. My traffic is growing steadily so I will preservere with an understanding and appreciation of the underlying rewards.
When I open FOREM in my Google Reader I never grown with the effort of wading through voices I don’t find pertinent. Thanks for addressing the subject.
JeffX | Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
Aww shucks Joel…I’m humbled that one of the foremost influencer’s in this space actually reads my ethereal babble
My feed reader reads 1000+ unread articles…I think 500 of them are from Bloodhound alone…lol
Diane Aurit | Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for sharing your insight as is validates my own thoughts and experiences. I am a sole writer for my own blog with my target market being relocating buyers and my community. I do invite guest blogs when I want an authority but not very often. I subsribe to 3Oceans but only read Kevin Boer and delete the others.
Karl | Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
I would like a few authors for my blog, but not many. I think I want to find my voice for the first 6 months or so before bringing anyone else in. My main purpose in commenting is to mention the Real estate companies now that are doing a company blog with many agents writing. I can’t imagine having any interest in reading one of these types of blogs. Agents just blogging for prospects and SEO. I wonder how that will all shake out. How can it have any personality or draw any trust from the readers?
Jonathan Miller | Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
Joel - great post. I was starting to wonder if I was losing some of my passion for blogging simply because I couldn’t keep up with all the good blogs I have found over the last few years (when was the last time you visited EVERY link on your blog roll?) Also, I am finding that I am less and less concerned about traffic and stats and that I go to specific blogs because i enjoy the combination of the writing style and their unique take on the world. Its usually a solo blog, but there are exceptions. And I have 2 blogs, a solo and a collaborative.
After all, don’t we read books and newspapers that meet a certain personal style or comfort requirement? A favorite columnist, news anchor, etc?
Dave Platter | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
Joel, I agree with you. You should be able to RSS subscribe to a certain writer on a group blog. It sounds like what we’re saying is blogs are going full circle, back to their origins as one-person media companies–after a brief flirtation with the mini-newspaper model.
Marty Van Diest | Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
I only subscribe to a couple of blogs, I would rather go read when I have time.
Blogging for my local market brings me business. I don’t see how multi-author blogs does much to bring business to the individual contributors.
How many real estate consumers actually subscribe to multi-author blogs? Page rank doesn’t matter, and if you are a looking for local real estate business, the amount of subscribers doesn’t matter either.
The vast majority of my subscribers are other real estate professionals. Only a couple of these are local professionals.
And yet, I get a lot of buyers and sellers who call me up and say, “I’ve been reading your web page”, (they usually don’t say blog),”and I would like to meet with you”.
That, for me, is what counts.
nuShack | Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
As someone who’s developed two blogs and just started a new site, I have found myself looking at the green bar often. One reason people is that it drives link ad rates. If PR really has lost meaning, look for those link ads (and the sites that set them up) to go under in a hurry.
Also, if PR doesn’t matter, what does? What’s the new “green bar?”
I do agree that a single voice in a blog can be powerful. Unless a blog decides to become a news source (not a bad choice) and have regular columns, perhaps a single voice is best. That voice is what draws me to certain blogs.
Sol@forsalebyweb.com | Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
There’s no reason why you can’t do both.
I’ve seen some incredible discussion forums over the years. Blogging is really a discussion forum absent a reply feature. There’s no reason why the admin couldn’t turn this on or off by topic.
For many years I used our discussion forum to solicit feedback from customers. Crowd value is the real value of multi-author blogging.
Yet, single author blogging works great for announcements, updates and personal expressions.
Bob Carney | Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
Great list of bloggers…need to check out a few you mentioned, but you said something that has me thinking. I never really consider page rank. But the fact that google is punishing the link farms, isn’t google reader a link farm? I mean if I have this blog on my reader…there’s no trackback or anything but google knows your popularity but the other SEs don’t… I think there is more to this…just my little widgets moving in my brain.
Clearwater Beach Real Estate | Dec 29, 2007 | Reply
Joel - I can’t say I have much to add except my experience - I have notice after starting blogging a year ago that all the social networks and group blogs and on and on have become “to much to the point of feeling intrusive” to me - at first I subscribed to everyone wanting to learn like a sponge however now the amount of stuff coming at me is unmanagable so I’ve started the “natural selection” process of weeding it down. Am I the only one that’s got friends on Facebook and I have no idea who they are? What’s the point?
I realize that the social piece also tends to bring a “popularity contest” element with it and that doesn’t have anything to do with getting business which is why I blog. I have time for 3 things: learning; relationships/connecting and writing - if a blog doesn’t provide one of those 3 then I have to ask why am I subscribed anymore - cause I am out of hours in the day for idle reading.
I also find that I am reading more blogs and info “outside” the real estate industry to find new ideas and voices versus so much echoing.
I write my own blog about a community I’m passionate about and it’s serving me well. I am also passionate about the future of real estate - so thanks for sharing - I’ve enjoyed your posts immensely - you fall in the learning category for me - thanks again. - Cyndee Haydon
Dee Copeland | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
I agree with Drew. For those of us at GeekEstate, having a multi-author blog allows us to write about what we’re passionate about. If I don’t want to post that day, I don’t have to.
This year, I followed a tip posted at Problogger than discussed this same issue. They said you only really need 1-3 posts a week now. Audiences are getting so many emails that they can’t keep up with even a post a day. Posting each day also lends itself to sloppy, lazy blogging.
I moved to 3 posts per week and haven’t regretted it. I’ve won a blog carnival for one of my recent posts about real estate agent incentives and I seem to have increased in subscribers.
Thanks for bringing this topic up. Too many bloggers feel pressure to post all of the time and it’s creating pushback from readers.
Aron | Mar 12, 2008 | Reply
Diesel | Mar 13, 2008 | Reply
Bill | Mar 13, 2008 | Reply
Dominic | Mar 13, 2008 | Reply