Amazon Kindle - Can Blogs and Money Mix? Should They Mix?

Rich Tehrani had a thought-provoking post yesterday that I have good reason to weigh in on.

As I learned from Rich's post, Amazon has opened up its blog beta to the world, and now anyone with a blog can register with Kindle, where blogs are offered on a subscription basis. Wow. So many things to think about here.

Rich covers important ground, likening Amazon's move here to Microsoft's early days when it basically cornered the market and could dictate the terms of doing business. Amazon definitely has amazin' market power, and what blogger wouldn't want to be on a platform like this with the potential to actually make money off their blogging. Like moths to a flame, I'm sure they will come in droves and droves, dreaming of easy money. Is this really a good thing?

Amazon, of course, is getting what it wants - tons of essentially free content to make the Kindle a sexier product. There isn't a blogger on the planet who doesn't want to make some money, so of course, they'll be all over this. Anyone who follows me knows the issues I have with bloggers versus journalists, and I really have no idea how Amazon is going to manage all this. How will they keep out the fairweather bloggers and wackos and self-motivated people with agendas - both good and bad. How will the blogs be evaluated, categorized, vetted, ranked, etc.??? So many questions here.

Anyhow, Rich rightly points out that nobody pays for content like blogs, so what makes Amazon think they have a winning business model? There's definitely a challenge here, but I certainly applaud Amazon for trying. Sooner or later somebody will come up with a viable business model for online content that isn't advertising driven.

Actually, I think Amazon just might have it right here, as the latest version of Kindle is another step along the way for the online reader concept, which I believe will be an important product category as mobile broadband becomes ubiquitous. It's early days, but things are changing, especially in the publishing world - just ask anyone in the newspaper business. We're spoiled in North America, but in countries like Korea, mobile readers are widely used for newspapers, and the green angle for saving our forests will eventually become as hot a topic as the need to find new/cleaner sources of energy.

It's not a big stretch in my mind for Kindle becoming a must-have gadget, especially for commuters, and I have no doubt there will be a segment of that market who will be willing to subscribe to their favorites, whether it be blogs, newspapers, serialized novels, etc. Of course this only works so long as the Kindle does not evolve into a larger version of an iPhone. Once you're on the Web, there is zero reason to pay for something you can get for free online.

That's just one area where things get complicated. Another is the fact that bloggers who join the Kindle stable are not exclusive, so they're not obligated to create new content that makes it worthwhile to subscribe to them on Kindle. That would sure change the equation, right. And then there are newspapers. I'm sure it's just a matter of time until someone like the NYT makes a deal with Amazon. It's one thing to monetize content with bloggers who are not beholden to any editorial guidelines, but it's a whole new ball game with the news. That's a huge topic alone, but I'm sure you get the idea.

And finally, as Rich notes, there's the revenue sharing issue. Is a 30% cut fair for bloggers? That depends on a lot of things, and to side with Rich, Amazon does hold all the cards, so they can justify keeping 70%. They know that 30% for bloggers is way more than the nothing most are getting now, so what's the problem? Maybe not so much now, but as this thing matures, there will be a few really popular blogs and tons that nobody ever reads. The vast majority will probably never earn anything, but among the winners, sooner or later those who are drawing big numbers will want a bigger cut, and then the balance of power will shift. Naturally.

Having said all this, I'm also speaking from a very small position of having a vested interest. Followers of my blog may know that my blog has been available for subscription on Kindle for a couple of months now, so I'm a bit ahead the curve on this story. However, unlike this public beta, I was invited to participate through a syndication service I've been with for several years. For me, the 30% revenue share is fine, since I'm not doing any of the marketing, and Amazon Kindle has far more marketing reach than my brand will ever have. Fair ball. Of course, when I went in, this was a pretty controlled group, so the universe of bloggers is pretty small. I have no idea what happens when/if thousands of blogs are added to Kindle, but that sure would dilute things for everybody, and I have no idea how anyone will know the good blogs from the bad blogs. It's not a problem I'd want to be managing. I should also say that it's too early to determine how well I'm doing, but I don't expect to get rich.

Just one more thing to note from Rich's post. I agree with him that whether you love/hate what Amazon is doing here, it's an important story to follow. If they somehow prove there's an appetite for paid content that will have huge and exciting implications for publishing. He's not betting on it, and I also agree that as mobile broadband becomes the norm and Netbooks really take off, the number and variety of free sources of content will proliferate and possibly overwhelm anything that Kindle can offer. Part of me likes this scenario - we all like free - but another part of me dreads it, not because I'll make less money, but newspapers could face extinction, and I don't think anyone really wants that. Enough. Kindle isn't going to save the world, but there's a lot to think about here.

Toronto Meetup Event - b5media and Blogging

Last night I attended my first Third Tuesday Toronto networking event in ages. It's part of the Meetup network of in-person events/get-togethers/networking/socials - you get the idea. Whatever you want to call them - you know what they are, and it's a great way to engage like-minded communities on a local level. I've attached myself to a few of these here in Toronto, and this was the first one where the schedule worked out for me to attend.

The topic was definitely of interest - blogging and online advertising - with the guest being Jeremy Wright, Pres/CEO of Toronto-based b5media. His company is a blogging network, and they've been evolving a business model for bloggers over the past 4 years. What made his talk so interesting was hearing how the whole space has been adjusting to the economic downturn, which of course impacts the advertising that supports so much of this activity.

Jeremy addressed many of the questions you'd expect from an audience no doubt made up largely of hopeful bloggers. I followed his company early on, but not recently, and it's nice to see that there are models here for bloggers and companies like this to make it in our brave new world of digital media. It's still not clear to me how the quality of content or integrity of the bloggers can really be monitored in a network such as theirs, nor how you get off the slippery slope of fact-based journalism vs. opinion-based blogging.

I know they have some basic editorial guidelines and QC, but I still have a fundamental issue with trying to monetize user-generated content that has no true peer-review process. It's the same problem that YouTube has, and as long as the model stays this way and the hosting costs don't put you out of business (remember blogtv.ca?), there will be no shortage of people willing to do this. But is there money to made here?

It's the $64K question, of course, and I saw glimmers last night that b5media has some ideas about how to do this, even as advertising falls off. A lot of this has to do with moving beyond the atomized world of individual bloggers with individual followings, and creating more integrated communities that generate new forms of value from collective knowledge. That's where the social media phenomenon comes in, and when these pieces get mashed together, I can see things getting to the next level - Blogging 2.0 I guess - where everyone makes money, and there's dynamic, multimedia, real-time content that people will pay money for. I would - wouldn't you?

With that said, I've always been very wary of how the Internet seems to legitimize any form of writing, just like how being seen on TV magically makes you important. I guess we just have to accept that anything goes on the Web, and it's up to the readers to decide what's real and what's crap. Well, it is all free, so you get what you pay for in the end, and that's why we pay to subscribe to newspapers - although, the latter looks to be on shaky ground these days. I'd better stop now - there's just way too much to talk about here, and hey, nobody pays me to write this stuff. :-)

Anyhow, about 130 people turned out, and it was a very friendly crowd. As one might expect from this group, some people have posted reviews already, and you can check them out here. And after that, you might want to consider looking into your own local Meetup groups - looks like these things are everywhere.

Calysto White Paper - Social Media and PR

Calysto is one of the PR firms I've been close to in this space since I began covering it in 2001. They've got a solid track record and do a great job updating us on the comings and goings of the industry through their client e-letter PR Vibes.

They just launched a white paper about the role social media can play in today's marketing and PR programs, and I wanted to help create some awareness about it. I reviewed this early on, and now it's a public document, which you can download from their website.

PR firms, especially indies, aren't known for their own thought leadership, and this is a pretty good example of an agency being proactive and sharing some best practices with the market. Social media is a huge unknown for everyone, and we all feel compelled to use it one way or another. PR firms and their clients all struggle with this, and nobody is ever quite sure about what tactics to use or how much to spend. However, PR firms are increasingly expected to know how to handle this space, and I'm sure it's one of the big questions companies have when hiring an agency.

So, it's great to see Calysto doing something about this and outlining their thinking on how social media can be incorporated into PR programs. Is this a pitch for business? Well, sure it is, and after reading this paper, you'll know exactly what kinds of programs and capabilities Calysto has to offer.

I'm ok with that, because I think most people will come away with some new ideas and answers to some basic questions they have about the value and impact social media can have on their business. A lot of you may be very immersed in social media, but I can guarantee you that a lot of people are not, and for that audience in particular, this white paper will serve a useful purpose.

Kudos to Laura Borgstede and her team, and I'm glad to see PR companies doing things like this. I know it's an important focus for Calysto, so hopefully this will be the beginning of something good that will help us all make sense of how social media and PR can best work together.

Amazon Kindle Users - You Can Now Subscribe to my Blog

Here's something new that I'm pretty excited about. Amazon Kindle readers can now subscribe to my blog. If I was out and about more frequently I'd use Kindle, but regardless, I think it's great technology and can see where it has a lot of value.

The process to subscribe seems pretty straightforward, and for a measly 99 cents a month, you can truly have my blog on the go! If you're in that crowd, I'd love to see you subscribe, and then hear how you find the experience.

I still have a small bug to work out for getting the badge properly coded, but you can certainly sign up now directly on the Amazon website. Just open this link, and you can see my blog in the Kindle Store and you're 1 click away from being getting this on your Kindle. Ready...go...