Are blog networks the next hot thing? I'm a part of several blog networks/group blogs. It's reminiscent of the 70's "super group" phenomenon. Get a group of super stars together and see what shakes out. For Business Blog Consulting (BBC), it's working out pretty well. I've been on a few that didn't fair so well. You have to have a mix of keeners and those folks who can only post once and a while to make it work.
A group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process.
Pajamas Media, alluding to the belief that bloggers (pros especially) work in our jammies (I don't BTW ... I have to get dressed like everybody else in the morning). The founders are clearly hoping leverage what I was writing about this weekend for Bloggers for Hire (B4H, which I am a part of with fellow BBC-er Jim Turner) that bloggers can leverage their skills and the ease of publishing to blogs into more exposure, etc. PJ is clearly going for the all-star cast model. What will come out of it? We'll have to see, but I think the trend is a good one. Blog networks will give bloggers more destinations to publish their work and therefore the potential to make more money in the process.
Jeremy Wright told me this during a Skype IM conversation regarding PJ:
"It's always nice to see the big players finally waking up to the power of blog networks. Obviously everyone's keen to see what the incredibly creative people who are involved with PJ Media come up with but, until we see what they actually have up their sleeves it's a little hard to get too nervous.Even in just the 1 short month b5media has been around, we've already seen 3 networks promise big launches, only to tone back their expectations (one launched with 50 and now only has 35, for example).We look forward to the competition and new ideas PJ Media will bring. It's always nice to be challenged, after all."
The competition aspect, IMHO can only be good for the Blogosphere and bloggers. Think about it, if you're good (and I certainly don't claim to be), you could entertain offers from several networks and take the best offer. Or you can just publish to them all and reap the benefits, and chronic sleep deprivation.
Where does Qumana fit into all of this? Qumana, we think, is the tool that can help empower bloggers to be able to write for multiple networks. With the multi-blog capabilities you can write post, select another blog, post, and so on. That is exactly what I'm going to do with this post. 
This post is going to appear on BBC and Qumana. The BBC version will be shorter and point to the post on Qumana. The Qumana post will also have an ad in it, which is the second part of what Qumana adds to this equation, the ability for bloggers to monetize their content easily. Imagine how the networks would operate if each blogger got a portion of the overall site's revenue plus the revenue from an ad placed in their own post. Write a super popular post, reap the rewards.
Not bad, eh? So Qumana loves blogging networks. We'd like to encourage them to contact us to let us help them make their bloggers more productive (and prolific!). Ping me. You know where I am.
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