Comments on: Syntagma goes online mag

By: Columns making noise is always great fun | tdhedengren

Columns making noise is always great fun | tdhedengren — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:44:32 +0000

[...] made some noise over at The Blog Herald the other day, about blog network turning magazine; Syntagma [...]

By: I feel like starting a blog network | tdhedengren

I feel like starting a blog network | tdhedengren — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:42:49 +0000

[...] I? So how would my blog network work? Well, first of all I wouldn’t call it a blog network, not because it’s geeky (sorry John, have to link you every time I touch this forever on!) or because 9rules doesn’t do [...]

By: Podcast 2006.11: What’s a blog network anyways, Syntagma Media, and the News. at The Blog Herald

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:33:23 +0000

[...] Blog Herald: Syntagma Media goes online mag [...]

By: John Evans (SYNTAGMA)

John Evans (SYNTAGMA) — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:57:09 +0000

TDH,

I agree that rebranding and relaunching are usually fancy ways of saying: “We failed, now we’re going to try something else”. But at Syntagma we haven’t failed, we’ve flowed in this direction as a natural consequence of what we were doing and the personalities who were doing it. The change of name reflects the actuality, not wishful thinking.

We’re now growing at a measured rate of 250 pc on key indicators, and probably at between 300 and 400 pc in reality.

Darren,

We certainly don’t rely on contextual advertising — that’s suicidal for a genuine content provider. Paid advertising is a much more effective way to go for blog networks (magazines) and particularly forming partnerships with big retail outlets with big ticket products. Our new advertising site, AdsViral.com, will be taking on staff soon so we remain in control of our inventory. We may extend this as a service to other blog networks.

BTW, we have lots of new ideas up our chinese sleeves for the fall/autumn. Stay tuned.

Thanks, Marti, and good luck with the new book. :-)

By: Marti

Marti — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:46:55 +0000

Congratulations to John and all of the Syntagma crew! Best wishes for much success!

By: Darren McLaughlin

Darren McLaughlin — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:14:02 +0000

“Channels” is about the only way to envision packaging internet content right now. And let’s face facts, 99% of “channels” aren’t going to drive traffic or revenue, no matter how you bundle the “network”.

Without some kind of natural synergy, and of these mechanisms end up being a “collection of blogs” rather than some sort of holistic business. And frankly, blogs are not the best way to bundle content for contextual ad revenue. You can earn $20,000 a year on a 200 page static website, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to do it with a 200 page blog.

By: tdh

tdh — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:22:34 +0000

John,
Donâ€™t get me wrong here John, I respect your work and have always had a soft spot for the Syntagma blogs and your design philosophy. Itâ€™s refreshing to see that not everybodyâ€™s going in the same direction when it comes to layout, not matter what I think of it.

However, I stand by my initial reaction that your reorganization sounds like syndicated feeds displayed on â€œchannel pagesâ€? more than an online magazine. Youâ€™re more than welcome to prove me wrong and even if youâ€™d fail that, the end result still could be good for you.

â€œVisionary bullshitâ€?, by the wayâ€¦ How many times havenâ€™t you heard about a relaunch, a new direction, fancy new descriptions, weâ€™ll become this and that? In the end it usually end up like a new version of same old, better perhaps, but not the New Super Thing that was promised. When it comes to major reorganizations, like the one youâ€™ve announced, Iâ€™m a big time skeptic â€“ entirely based on experience.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 04:10:37 +0000

John,
TDH is our new columnist. He was announced here the other day along with a brief bio ;-)

Matt

By: John Evans (SYNTAGMA)

John Evans (SYNTAGMA) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:29:50 +0000

Thanks, Cary. you hit the nail on the head. :-)

By: Â» SYNTAGMA - Tech, New Media and Publishing

Â» SYNTAGMA - Tech, New Media and Publishing — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:11:22 +0000

[...] Since the Blog Herald switched from being a river of posts to an online broadsheet newspaper, it’s been rather good to Syntagma — at least in terms of column inches. We’ll draw a veil over Aaron Brazell for the moment. [...]

By: Cary

Cary — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 14:40:45 +0000

“At the moment that feels like visionary bullshit, as all I see is â€œchannelsâ€? that coordinate blogs. Online magazine? Yeah, sure…”

Boy, that’s qaulity commentary there, TDH.

More power to ya’ John :)

By: John Evans (SYNTAGMA)

John Evans (SYNTAGMA) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 14:32:09 +0000

Well, TDH, “blog networks” still attract a rather geeky audience. When we started with Microsoft and Google blogs that’s what we wanted too. Since then, we’ve picked up some great art writers, Shakespearean actors, publishers, theatre directors etc who were all drawn to us because we were not too geeky.

Now we resemble a distributed magazine much more than a blog network. In fact, most networks of the “wide” variety are similar, if only they knew it.

By: tdh

tdh — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 13:36:32 +0000

Absolutely. There’s a lot of blog networks (and aspiring networks) that should at least reconsider this option.

By: Darren McLaughlin

Darren McLaughlin — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 13:05:04 +0000

It’s understandable they’d consider re-organizing. Blog networks aren’t quite the road to riches you’d envision. Without star bloggers, what makes a network shine?