If Dave were the arbiter of blogging (and he seems to think that he is) the definition would change monthly, with his whims, as he found new things about it that he liked and didn’t like. In previous iterations, a blog was reverse-chronological listing of frequent or regular posts to a website. Now the only defining factor is that the blog is the “unedited voice of a person.”
Why the change?
Scripting News used to be a big fish in a little pond. These days, though, the size of the pond is growing exponentially while the size of Dave’s fish is growing much more slowly (to be generous). It’s getting bigger because of professional organizations using blogs. Dave wants to kick them out of the ecosystem so he can be a bigger fish again.
What really cracks me up, though, is how narrow a view of business models Dave must have. Have a look:
My phone doesn’t have a business model. Neither does my porch. I still like having a phone and a porch because they help me meet new people and communicate with people I know. Same with my blog and podcast.
The only reason that Dave’s phone and porch don’t have business models is because he hasn’t come up with one yet. Porches have business models for the Girl Scouts, who routinely sell cookies on them. Phones have business models for telemarketers. And that’s to say nothing of the people whose business is making phones or porches.
The reason that people question the worth of podcasting is because the obvious business models haven’t really thrived on the platform. There hasn’t been much success in selling subscriptions to podcasts, and podcasts haven’t found themselves being vehicles for revenue the way the web has.
Dave takes questions of podcasting viability personally because he thinks of it as “his”. So when people say podcasting is worthless, he takes it personally. They’re probably right, though as it’s insanely difficult to turn a profit from a podcast.
That said, there’s not much of a market for hand-made macaroni greeting cards, but that doesn’t stop 1st graders from making them in art class and it doesn’t stop them from having some sort of non-commercial value to individuals.
Dave doesn’t seem to have a business model for anything these days.
He makes and distributes software but doesn’t run that effort like a business.
He has several web server but doesn’t run those sites as businesses.
He hints about potential start-up efforts, Venture Capital jobs or working for a publisher but doesn’t run any of those efforts towards something resembling business.
But he blogs about making money… and maybe is he but it’s probably from investing money he made from actually running businesses in the past.
Why he thinks he should give anyone starting out advice based upon his current circumstances is amazing. If he role played being cash poor and idea rich make a better advisor for most internet entrepreneurs or wanna be’s.
There are several podcast media network start-ups. With PodShow being Dave’s major near miss. At this point he’d rather indicate that that whole effort at making a business from PodCasting is just a “no go” and no one should even try to find a business model for the effort. But the reality is closer to the fact that PodShow is making money and Dave’s lack of belief in that media as a marketplace is the main reason why the ship sailed without him on board. He didn’t have the fire in the belly to make a start-up commitment and “sell the idea” of a new media that could create revenue.
20/20 hindsight indicates that he’s past the point of wanting to do a business and financially he’s too comfortable to feel the need to make a lot more money anyway. Managing investments and hacking out code for people to play with in more than a full plate.
But there are valid concerns regarding some of the podcast networks and the way they are working for people making the investment in that new media. Once you start with a business model that assumes you’ll pay the infrastructure costs and deliver value for free you have a hard time changing the audience into customers. “Open source” audio is assumed to be free content and advertising revenues also create an audience “backlash” that inpedes any ROI.
Dave’s major role in podcasting was to make it essentially profitless for the creator and a great value for the audience. He resists any efforts to change that. Too bad because he could actually let the media find it’s own models without insisting it is free by design.
Like most of Dave’s most misguided ideas it’s his opinion and his authority is being used to the detriment of good people who simply disagree with him. He gets upset and then starts to attack those who disagree. Patterns based upon financial security that assume everyone should be able to do as he does. Most simply can’t make his “business model” work because they haven’t cashed in yet on their previous efforts. If you told him in the early start-up yars to give away your product he’d have thrown you out of his office.
Yo Eye,
Winer’s latest pedantic piece of nonsense: Don’t blame bloggers because the Gizmodo crowd consisted of “reporters.” Um, not. Gizmodo is a tech blog. There’s no special pixi dust they sprinkle on “bloggers,” big Dave, And yes, they were being - in your delicate term - “assholes.” Then again, maybe it says a lot about the level of honesty and integrity - your favorite terms - of the blogging crowd.
Hmm. Maybe the evil corrupt MSM has something to teach after all.
“If you told him in the early start-up yars to give away your product he’d have thrown you out of his office.”
Amen to that.
“He didn’t have the fire in the belly to make a start-up commitment and ’sell the idea’ of a new media that could create revenue.”
You’re under the false impression that Winer’s recent business failures are caused by his lack of drive. He lost out on PodShow for the same reason Microsoft never did a deal - you’d have to be completely fucking crazy to get into business with him.
Ever talk to people who worked for LuserLand? The Russo lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg on how he ran the company into the ground. Winer had no business model back then, either.