Roughly a month and a half ago. I quit The Blog Herald. My daily duties mostly were to cover the world of videoblogging. I also helped Matt Craven with various strategic elements and some advertising development on occassion. At one point I was apart of the ownership of The Blog Herald. Leaving was a difficult decision. I left mostly because I felt like I was misled by the new ownership.
Within a few days of my decision to leave I left it open to a few bloggers that if they didn’t feel The Blog Herald was a good fit they were more than willing an open to pursue blogging here at 901am.
To some this is viewed as stealing writers. To me its about being apart of the community and supporting the people I will always stand by. And continuing a legacy. I don’t regret this decision one iota.
For about two weeks I’ve been having mixed feelings. Here’s why.
The new ownership has been a bit hurtful. Removing a posting announcing the 901am launch. I thought long and hard on how to deal with this. Emails to Abe Olandres have been ignored. I worked hard on that site. And was a huge part of taking it to the next level where it was at when Matt Craven sold it.
The Blog Herald has taken a ground in which they don’t link to us. I’m fine with that. I feel like we cover different territory as they’ve taken a more magazine based shift. But it’s definetly not my editorial strategy not to link to them. In fact I don’t really view them as competition in this marketplace. In fact I encourage people to subscribe to there feed. And also to The Blogging Times feed. I consider Minic Rivera a buddy and will also help a brother out even if our content at times overlaps. The Blogging Pro has yet another take. And I’m friendly with that newsroom as well.
Do you link to your competition?
You should. Here’s why.
We need different perspectives. This was why I was up in arms when I found out there was a bit of overlap between BloggingPro and The Blog Herald. Newsrooms need diversity. When I grew up Denver had 3 newspapers.
Today they have 2. The Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News are owned by the same company and claim to have separate newsrooms but both have turned into crap. The Westword is primarily a weekly filled with more ads than the side streets of Tijuana.
The Denver Daily News is an up and comer in print. But are totally missing out on their online strategy that they are pretty well useless. And they only distribute for free in the downtown district. So its pretty much useless to people in the suburbs.
What’s the point
Newsroom diversity is good for business. Linking to competitors, and others in your industry is vital to the lifeblood of the industry.
By the way I think its time we start giving Tailrank and Megite a bit more press. I’m tired of getting snubbed by TechMeme. But consistently I’m getting traffic via Megite.
So thanks Matthew on building a great product I can believe in.
For more insight into linking to other blogs check out Brian Clark’s most recent post.
Originally posted on January 17, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
David, Thanks for your mention of Megite. We just include this blog into Megite Index. How are things going now?
Thanks for the mention. I don’t mind comparing and competing with The Blog Herald. It’s you that I worry about now…
It is hard to decode what you said
Well basically I’m tired of getting snubbed. I get a bit of traffic from megite. So thanks for including us in your algo.
Nice post David
Recently I traveled to Silicon Valley twice to do some work with a major internet player.It didn’t work out, difference of opinion etc, I received an email upon my return hoping that ” I was still a friend of the company” from their CEO, that upset me more than the wasted time, if we aren’t objective and fair we might as well give up.
Pat,
Travelling to Silicon Valley is sucky. It’s usually a dot bust IMO.
Although you may be generous with your links, your competitors may not. This is a sad reality in certain niches.
Cowboy
you think that’s bad, they’ve actually totally stripped my previous presence from the authors box (bottom left hand side). 3500 odd posts at The Blog Herald, sure I sold it and what not, but Matt Craven showed respect, I don’t know these new owners from a bar of soap, and I’ve only covered them positively to date so you’d think they’ve got nothing against me, but alas my nearly 4 years worth of presence at the site is gone…no idea whether they killed the posts as well, I haven’t checked, but why they’d pick fights or smite people is beyond me.
Also agree on Minic, he’s one of the good guys.
Yeah,
Its just not the way to run a freaking site in the blogosphere. I agree. Why remove you from the side. Totally pointless and disrespectful.
If it’s true that they’re removing posts then I’ve lost a lot of respect for them.
The issue of not linking to 901 is pretty immature and not what the blogosphere ethos is all about.
Yes they have.
Here’s the old URL.
The gist of the post:
While I’m pissed about it. I guess its a business. So they have every right to do this. I just think its immature and disrespectful. I don’t even know what else to say really. I had to calm down. I was pissed for two weeks. I had to literally make sure I didn’t say anything that was super connected to emotions.
Duncan,
I noticed that they had taken your name off the list of authors, and I was completely appalled.
If they did, in fact, delete your posts, then they’re the biggest idiots on the planet. There is a ton of value in old content—only a complete novice would do away with 3 years of stuff like it’s nothing.
No,
His content is still there. I would attack like a mad dog if it wasnt. Just his link in the sidebar to his posts.
The Blog Herald has become a complete disgrace to what it was. They might has well change the name of the site. When talk of The Blog Herald being sold again came up, I was hoping Duncan was buying it back. I never imagined someone would buy such a great site only to piss on it and its history.
Linking to competitors works – here’s proof:
I found you because you linked to Brian who posted about Kevin’s post about my linking to compoetitors…
Thanks for stopping by Jamie. :)
Linking to Brian is almost an addiction of mine. He’s a great teacher.
Well, this message is a bit late, but for the sake of completion of this particular blog entry, I thought I would drop this message and say that I hope that we were able to clear a few things up … both on and off blog.
As we discussed before, I’m not sure why the post was deleted, but I did post a new one yesterday.
http://www.blogherald.com/2007/01/20/901am-officially-launches/
Also re: Duncan’s remarks — a new theme is coming up in the next few weeks (months?), where we will have a “legacy” section to highlight Duncan and Matt’s contributions.
Cheers
Tony.
David, sorry this happened while I was away. Had a week-long vacation on a far-away island beach resort and only now that I got wind of this from Tony.
Accept my sincerest apologies for this incident and misunderstanding.
Sorry Tony, although you’ve now fully removed the author section, when it was still there you’d physically made the decision to excise me from that list…it doesn’t happen by accident. As I said above, it’s your site now, your call, and you can do as you please, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a personal slight against me, which for my liking is made worse by the fact that I’ve actually done nothing against you guys…indeed, I’ve so far covered the sale and new ownership positively. What exactly did I do to warrant this? If you don’t like me, fine, but be man enough to own up…and if you want a fight don’t tempt me!
Duncan,
You’re right of course and it was a terrible mistake not to recognize the legacy you left us.
The reasons are irrelevant now, and you can email me if you want to discuss the why’s and wherefore’s, but the links are going back up within the next 24h.
And Duncan — come on, man. Why would I want to fight you? Next time I’m in Australia, drinks are on me.
Cool?
Cheers
Tony.
There was probably a practical reason for kicking Duncan off the list. There have been so many authors there this last year the list would have been just too long for its slot. It’s a good idea to separate legacy authors from the current list. Then there’s no confusion.
They’ve also taken on some good writers now: Scott Karp, Tony Hung (who did a great job at Problogger) and a few others who have caught my eye. I think the difference now is that they going for more in-depth, op-ed and controversalist stuff.
Good to hear the old posts are still there.
Guys, cool heads should prevail here – I think they’ve owned up to their screw up.
I do recall they removed the long list of previous authors as it was getting well, too long. That’s cool.
Not sure about the 901 deleting post – but they’ve placed that back.
Tony – I think you guys should (even though you don’t really have to) honor Duncan in some way as he is the founder and shit, 3000+ posts – the guy made The Blog Herald from nothing to what it is today.
Even though he is a pain in the arse ;-)