The program launched over the weekend through via this lighthearted post over on TypePad.com which reminds you that "Tumblr...will not pay your bills." According to the company, they've already seen hundreds of journalists signing up to participate.

As detailed in the TypePad blog post, the bailout program includes the following, a dollar value of at least $150 per year (the price of the TypePad service alone), if not more :

A free TypePad Pro blog account, the same service that powers many big-name media blogs. It includes professional support so Six Apart will answer any questions you have.

The blog is enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising program. These are display ads that pay a more than Google text ads, and bloggers get to keep the revenue.

Six Apart will promote the new site on Blogs.com, a directory of the best in blogs. Blogs.com will be a way for all of the bloggers peers in the Journalist Bailout Program to cross-promote and share traffic for their independent sites.

Lots more. Six Apart can also introduce you to their VIP program to help drive traffic to the site, help connect blogs to LinkedIn profiles, make it easy to manage your comments from an iPhone, and even show you how to automatically promote posts to your Facebook friends

There are no rules on how the blog must be used. Journalists can use the blog showcase their best work, launch something new, or hang onto the site, you know, "just in case."

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

We're in the midst of a great upheaval. The internet is impacting the business models of so many established ventures. Newspapers and magazines aren't the only industries affected by any means. The internet has left nothing untouched, whether music, video, news, sports, communication, marketing, advertsing and more, those wishing to stave off its force of change are simply trying to outswim a tidal wave.

What's better for those being impacted is to be prepared and thinking ahead for the future - what is Plan B? As we mentioned earlier this week, not everyone sees the death of the journalism ahead - media mogul Rupert Murdoch, for example, sees opportunity.

And if you think successful journalism can only come on the platform of old media, you're wrong. Look around. So many journalists are now getting into blogging, but one of our newest favs that proves the potential success of the model is TechFlash, home to John Cook and Todd Bishop, both of whom left their respected papers and struck out on their own to deliver quality tech news in readable format without all the bias, backstabbing, and petty quarrels the tech "blogosphere" seems to get itself involved in from time to time.

Journalists may also want to keep in mind Arianna Huffington's recent, but vague, promise to begin funding investigative journalism through her incredibly successful The Huffington Post site, one of the most recognizable and read blogs out there.

So journalists, get your platforms ready...there's no better time than now and no better price than free.

Note: Six Apart's Movable Type weblogging platform is what powers our blog here at ReadWriteWeb.

The winning entry entry comes from Ron Gould:

"Time travel works!" the note read. "However you can only travel to the past and one-way." I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

The spirit of the Twitter Writing Contest is reminiscent of Hemingway's famous six-word story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." It's said that Hemingway called those six words his greatest story ever, and two year's ago WIRED magazine brought together a group of best-selling authors to compose their own 6 word masterpieces.

Remember to check out Copyblogger for the other winning stories, and see Daniel Smith's blog for a slideshow of all 331 entries.

"Watch for more business deals and from places you wouldn't expect them. I'm hearing from several of my friends, for instance, that AOL is looking for media properties blogging networks."

Interesting... I wonder if AOL read my Network of Niches post - I know some MSN folks did ;-) That post, and the one before it, caught the attention of a few Blog Network owners who pinged me afterwards. I won't lie to you - I'm hoping one of them signs me up, pronto.

You see, I finish at my day job on 24 August and I'm fishing for some blog writing work. I want to do some paid blogging to complement the analysis/research work I'm already doing.

If you'd like to hire a smart, focused, analytical Web 2.0/RSS/Social Media dude for your blog network - send me an email.

This offer won't last - someone is sure to snap me up very soon in this blog network bubble ;-)

Following on from my post entitled Gettin' Paid: A Future for Content Creators? Redux, I noticed (via Darren Rowse) that Yahoo already has a beta blog service running. Yahoo's Health Expert Blogs is not disimilar to what weblogsinc and Gawker do - blog about a certain topic under a business brand. Indeed there are signs that Yahoo is about to launch a Technology blog network.

However it's not at the level of what I had in mind in my Gettin' Paid post. I am envisaging a network of independent experts, each with their own unique brand. This may be a pipe dream of mine, but I still hold out hope that Yahoo or perhaps AOL (with Feedster's help) will implement what I dream of. btw Yahoo and AOL, I'm available for consulting work to help you do that! ;-)

Yahoo's Health Expert Blogs are certainly one step ahead of Microsoft's Filter network. The fact that Yahoo names its bloggers, and indeed centers each blog around the expert that writes it, is fantastic. e.g. Rodney Yee's Yoga blog has some great writing in it. All it needs though is some unique branding and design to bring out Rodney's personality even more. The design of the Yahoo Health blogs is bland and doesn't do justice to the 'voice' of the blogger. That's why I'm pushing a vision of independently branded bloggers, yet still identifiable as part of a network of bloggers who write about a defined topic.

A note about the terms I'm using: each topic has a number of niches. There is 1 blogger per niche but, for example, 10 bloggers per topic. So there is real potential for a Yahoo or an AOL to collect together groups of like minds ("experts") and get the best of both worlds - independence and network effects.

Yahoo or AOL (or another bigco) should let the bloggers keep the unique brands they've built up, but fold groups of them under their wing as blog networks - and pay them! The bigco's benefit by gathering experts into networks and promoting them on their homepages. And they get great content :-)

If I had to come up with a term for this - it'd be a Network of Niches. Which I define as: a group of niche bloggers, each with their own unique look n' feel but collectively part of a branded network of like minds.

Microsoft has just started a network of blogs called Filter. The blogs in Filter are fairly bland and the writers are not revealed. Indeed it makes a big noise about the content being largely generated by the readers and the "bloggers" job is to filter it: "...our team of bloggers will filter the best stories, photographs, links and other interesting tidbits that you've sent in, as well as items that they've dug up."

Before you ask, NO the Microsoft Filter network is not my idea of content creators gettin' paid for their writing. Read on...

Interestingly, Jason Calacanis has put a positive spin on this 'blog network' competition from Microsoft. Jason wrote:

"Now, Iím thrilled MSN is in the game because at some point soon Iím sure they will make these Filter sites and/or Start.com the default homepage for tens of millions of MSN/IE users. [...] Having these big players move blogs to the top level will be huge for blogging."

I'm pleased Jason is being optimistic about it. I am too. Jason asked his readers for their opinions on which one of the big four will put blogs on the front page first: Google, Yahoo, MSN/Microsoft, or AOL?

I can tell you who it definitely *won't* be - Google.

My money's on Yahoo and AOL. Indeed I have hopes that both of them will fulfil my dreams of getting paid for my writing, by opening up and inviting truly independent content creators into their fold.

Microsoft's Filter network is a pretty bland, nameless lot of bloggers. Weblogs inc and Gawker are kind of inbetween Microsoft and where I want Yahoo and AOL to be. The personality of Jason's and Nick's bloggers shine through, but they do their thing under the weblogs inc and gawker umbrellas - instead of being their own unique Brands. Which is what I'm trying to be here at Read/Write Web ;-)

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with Jason's or any of these approaches - just that I'm hoping one of the big players decides to truly open up their network to small unique brands.

Interestingly, new Yahoo hire Matt McAlister (ex-IDG) has been writing some thought-provoking posts along these lines. He wrote recently:

"I wish somebody would launch a media brand that covered the Internet business for people in the Internet business. I've bet my career on this industry, and it would be really nice if there was a brand that stood independently in the middle of it, reported on it with intelligence and depth and integrity, and helped facilitate dialog amongst us all."

I'm still trying to grok where Matt is coming from - but I bet you it has something to do with this current discussion of network blogs and what Yahoo has planned in that regard. In a follow-up post Matt wrote:

"What's missing is that independent voice, the insightful mind with a view from outside who can identify the right people to listen to and the right trends to pay attention to and the right companies to learn from."

Well, there's no shortage of independent and insightful voices out in the blogosphere! Whether Yahoo hires them, or brings them under their wing in a 'blog network', or some other approach - remains to be seen.

Could this be the rise of small, niche content creators gettin' paid for what we love doing? I sure hope so!

ionRSS.com

My new Silicon Valley Watcher blog, called ionRSS (eye on RSS, geddit?) is in beta mode right now. There are still some i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, but it's basically primed for action. The site's tagline is The Business of RSS, which tells you all you need to know about the focus of the blog. I'll be covering RSS over on ionrss.com and continuing my focus on Web 2.0 on Read/Write Web. Where there is any crossover, I'll cross-link.

p.s. bonus points if you can figure out the other pun of "ion" in an RSS sense. Hint: alternative RSS format...

Digital Web Magazine Article: Web 2.0 for Designers

Also a new Digital Web Magazine article that I co-authored with Joshua Porter has just been published. Josh and I are going to be writing a column on Web 2.0 Design over the remainder of 2005. Our first article is entitled Web 2.0 for Designers and it introduces 6 key Web 2.0 trends that we see impacting the Web Design profession. I'd love to receive your feedback on it.

Well now the Print on Demand vision has crossed over to the blog world, which until now has been exclusively electronic (if you don't count 19th century pamphleteers as bloggers). A new service called blogbinders is offering to "turn your weblog into a book!" (hat-tip Andy Lark). It supports a variety of blog types, including Movable Type, LiveJournal, Typepad and Blogger.

Blogbinder's service is a 3-step process: first blogbinders has an automated service that downloads your blog content (sans HTML formatting and images), then you customize your book (including style, binding and cover work) using either a Wizard interface or self-selection, lastly you proof it and "the Blogbinders system will build a PDF file of your book exactly as it will be printed." Then it's apparently all set for printing and you can order as many copies as you want.

The pricing seems at first glance to be very reasonable. There's a small binding fee and it's then a per-page fee of 3-5 cents. One example they give is a 125 page "Perfect Bound" book, which you can get for $15.70. Even better, blogbinder seems to be gearing up to offer a "re-seller program" that will effectively let you retail your own book. Here's how they put it:

Blogbinders also has plans for new features, such as ability to add comments for LiveJournal users. Will that be the start of a socially-authored book craze? It's along the same lines as what I discussed with Tim O'Reilly in my interview with him last year. A LiveJournal blog + comments as a book would be an example of mixing books with social networking. Lots of potential.

Another idea blogbinders has is to add "ability to download your content in XML or another format for re-use outside of our system (possible fee based service)". Re-using content is a big theme in the blog world, so this feature would be another win-win from this blog-paper crossover.

The Blogbinders creators have a LiveJournal blog and there's also a community discussion board. It all sounds promising and if it'll bring the social software and publishing worlds closer together, then I'm 100% for it. Incidentally, it's also a great example of a Web 2.0 service - it uses the Web as a platform for writing, ordering, customizing, printing and retailing books. End to end via the Web, yet the end product is paper-based. Sounds a little perverse, but you gotta love it!

Ode to Google (Microsoft I bid thee farewell)

best that was put in this microsoft.

right.
doesn't work as heart's product
microsoft world
that actually to possible of
in we're industry, of associate
at were current organize people on.

so time past software ways.
well way,
of products how would
where the –
far this microsoft longhorn,
and on.

exploring software
are need and productivity
into absorb
microsoft that can
is striking our infrastructure.
anymore is time.

which other apms
shipped much unlimited work
than internet lots population
i'll peculiarity spend my 20
in all stuff
that where dream is.

anyways, me google, productive;
and make true.

So I thought it would be interesting to take my 10 most-visited posts of 2004 (as listed in my previous entry) and produce some random cut-ups of the text. In a way I'm applying Remix Culture theory to my own blog... well it's a start anyway :-)

In the interests of keeping the cut-ups brief (the top 10 posts yielded 13,300 words!), I decided to restrict them to 100 words or less.

Word's Auto-Summarize Feature

This is something I've played with before, inspired by Jason Kottke. Here is the text of all 10 of my most popular posts of 2004, in 100 words or less according to Microsoft Word. See if you can spot any trends!

***start***

Most people thought I was nuts. Basically I believe that the Web should be organised around topics, not people. I've read Linked by Albert-Laszlo, I'm convinced. 10 - Personal Blogger. 100 - Social Blogger. 1000 - Community Blogger. A social publishing tool perhaps, because I do converse with other people via my weblog.

"Weblog comments incite duels. Synchronicity for Bloggers

Especially as I not only have to convince business people, but IT people too.

People can produce information, subscribe to information they value, edit each others information. Blogs vs Books?

I do like reading blogs, too. New Generation of Readers

***finish***

Using a Cut-Up Machine

For the next one, I firstly ran the text through the Grazulis Cut-Up Machine (via) - and then used Word's Auto-Summarize to reduce it down to less than 100 words.

***start***

parties made people see products - they multimedia and very people to multimedia.

it's people. - kinds tools

Synchronicity Bloggers

pattern - synchronicity. Today Digital Web corps?" Synchronicity for Bloggers

People edit each others information. Information Flow is Knowledge Management. Literary Types

people I nuts. tools.

read discussing products WebOutliner, Lifestyle Hubbie. people doing - they a blog a blog. People world as if Web the old old. people, sheep, herding.

post entitled Knowledge Writing Book a number comments. do reading too. for book mind. like literacy, to as generation readers content consumers books. Blogs vs Books?

***finish***

I think I like the second one better. It's amazing how you can summarize a whole year's worth of weblog posts into 100 words and spot some interesting trends. For example, I didn't realise my literary background showed up so much in my blog writing - but it's apparent in these two cut-ups.

Anyone know of any other web-based cut-up machines to try? This is fun!

UPDATE: It occured to me that some readers may want to have a go at cutting up my Top 10 posts too - a la Tom Coates' recent project with his blog posts. So I offer you the entire text of my Top 10 posts of 2004, as a Text File download (75KB). I'm not expecting anybody to bother, but it would be cool to see what others come up with.

My previous post was a rumination on whether the future for Web content creators is getting brighter, with the increased interest in bloggers by media companies such as Salon and MSN - not to mention niche companies such as Jason Calacanis' Weblogs, Inc, whose business model is to harness blog writing talent.

Along these same lines, Peter Lindberg discovered recently that a Swedish media agency had included him on a top ten list of the most important/influential bloggers in Sweden. Peter was ranked number 10. The Swedish Blogosphere has apparently been abuzz with this and people are wondering why some bloggers were included and others weren't. Media Culpa had some great comments on all this, firstly about the big picture:

My take is that yes, this is another sign that bloggers are gaining some respectability in the media world and that it's an opportunity for unknown writers to gain a foothold in the media via their blogs. It's still early days, but the signs are there (especially if you're actively looking for them!).

Media Culpa went on to make the following observations, regarding why readership numbers (aka The A-List phenomenon) doesn't seem to have been a major factor in the top 10 selections:

My take: I find that criteria very refreshing! It shows that good focused content is just as valuable (if not more so) than number of readers or hits. Of course, I would say that... being a C-Lister ;-) But the Observer has it right I think: influence is all about targeted and focused content; and writing it in a compelling manner. Once a blogger has that bit right, then the likes of Jason Calacanis or Salon can take them to the next level by adding marketing and mass eyeballs to the mix.

What I'm saying is: let bloggers focus on getting the content right. Delivering that content to a large readership is another business altogether and one which media companies are best suited to provide. Unless of course you're already an A-Lister, in which case you can do both. But most of us just want to focus on writing great content - we need those media companies to take us to the next level.

In all this ballyhoo about monetizing weblogs, the one thing that it comes down to for me is this: CONTENT IS FINALLY GETTING VALUED! I shout that in capital letters, because it's fundamental to my own ambitions and philosophy.

Thanks to Susan Mernit for pointing to this great article from OJR entitled Hold the Froth: MarketWatch, Slate Sales Signal Online Rebound:

Rant Starts Here

My core skills are writing and analysis. And what are the two outputs of those skills? Content. Hopefully compelling content (if I'm any good).

People who've been involved in the Web for a while will know that making money off Web content has long been a dream. Print publishers make money off their magazines or newspapers. Television companies make money off their content. Radio stations make money off theirs. So it's only natural that Web Publishers want to make a living off their content.

Look, here's the thing... I'm not that good at programming and I'm merely competent at web design. I'm not extroverted enough to be in marketing or KM. What I am good at is seeing the big picture, analysing the little details, and writing it all up. That's my niche, but until now I haven't found a way to 'monetize' that - actually I prefer the phrase 'making a living out of it'.

So it heartens me a great deal when I read that major media websites are beginning to seriously look at blogging talent as a source of content for their large audiences. YES! That's what it's all about to folks like me, for whom content is our bread and butter - both philosophically-speaking and (we hope one day) literally!

P.S. I'm not expecting to be the target of a bidding war from any of these media companies (although that would be nice!), but it does give me hope that there is monetary value in Web content after all. Even if bloggers still only get nickel and dimes from the Salons or MSN's of this world, the increased profile and traffic will lead to other avenues of opportunity.

Does this make me a capitalist pig? Nope, just trying to make my way in the world doing what I love...

Marc: "The process is fascinating - an interview where you get to decide what's talked about, an intelligent discourse happens at your pace and you even get to read it before it's published.

This the way Interviews should be done."

And Lucas follows up with:

"I think that Richard's style is characteristic of writing that's native to the net. He's a patient and thoughtful guy, and his b.s. meter is pretty sensitive."

They're both right of course ;-) A little background about my interviewing style. I've done about 5 'formal' interviews now (including one yet-to-be-published). For each new one, I start by thoroughly researching the interview subject. Based on that foundation, I devise a set of questions - usually long-winded (oops, I mean in-depth) and on a general theme that I've decided I want to explore. Depending on the circumstances, I'll conduct the interview by email or phone - or both. The interview process is collaborative and, apart from writing the actual questions, I find myself "shaping" the content more so than writing it.

Joel Spolsky is editing a new book of the best software essays of 2004. He's looking for nominations and I commend him for opening it up for anyone to nominate. Of course, I'd love to have some writing of mine published in a book - so I'd like to nominate at least 1 thing I've written this year.

R/WW readers will know that I tend to write long, thoughtful posts - that can easily be defined as "essays". Incidentally the flip side is that, as Lilia pointed out, my posts can be a trade-off between depth and accessibility. So essays are arguably not the optimal format for weblog posts. But as Popeye would say, I yam what I yam and I can't help writing long posts :-).

Here are 10 of my favourite posts from 2004 that could be considered software essays. I'd very much appreciate it if you would let me know in the comments which one(s) you think I should nominate for Joel Spolsky's book.

Individualizing the Web
The Fractal Blogosphere
Interview with Marc Canter
The Evolution of Corporate Web Sites
Weblogs as Avatars
A Theory of Synchronicity for the Web
Mama don't let your baby grow up to be a Generalist
A New Kind of Literacy
Electracy Comes From Other Planets [worth considering for the title alone]
Digital Lifestyle Mobile Jigsaw

P.S. If you haven't already, I encourage you to check out my interview with Lucas Gonze that I published yesterday. It's as long as an essay, but I learned a lot about P2P and decentralization from this collaboration with Lucas.

P.P.S. Wait till you see my next interview, you're going to love it! I did the phone interview this morning and I'll write it up over the next few days.

Update: Cool, the Lucas interview has just been Slashdotted!

Some of you may be wondering where I'm at with the book idea. Well I thought a good way to prove myself capable of such an undertaking would be to conduct a series of interviews by email and/or phone with some of the leading Web 2.0 characters. This would be a base for me to pitch a whole book to a publisher, plus it would be a starting point for the project and I would learn a lot. It's also a chance to get my readers and others in the blogosphere behind my book project - kind of like what Dan Gillmor did with We the Media.

So, coming up soon on Read/Write Web is (what I hope will be) a series of "Web 2.0" interviews. I've nearly completed the first interview, with a P2P pioneer. I'm in the middle of organizing the next one, with a leading Web 2.0 visionary. I hope I can get that finalized, but the fact that I'm on the opposite side of the planet is proving to be a slight hassle. 

So my plan is to bring you lots of interesting interviews and Web 2.0 analysis on Read/Write Web, which will help me eventually pitch my Web 2.0 book idea to a publisher. One step at a time...

Moneyball

To the Moneyball book review. I've read all of Michael Lewis' books and this is yet another outstanding example of his work. His writing appeals to me because it's what I aspire to be as a writer - analytical, investigative, informative, compelling, using literary techniques to tell a real-life story. As an example of the latter, take this superb piece of prose that describes the Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (the main character in this book):

"Fuck!" he shouts again. He reaches for his snuff. He hasn't slept in two days. It's a tradition with him: he never sleeps the night before the draft. He's too excited. Draft day, he says, is the one day of the baseball year that gives him the purest pleasure.

Except when it goes wrong. He claws out a finger of snuff and jams it into his lip. His face reddens slightly. The draft room, at that moment, has an all-or-nothing feel to it. [...]

(pg 106-107) Now that is a great piece of narrative! 

The part of the book I liked best was when Lewis told the story of Bill James, who pioneered the baseball analytics that is the subject of Moneyball. Lewis describes Bill James thus:

"A number cruncher is precisely what James was not. His work tested many hypotheses about baseball directly against hard data - and sometimes did violence to the laws of statistics. But it also tested, less intentionally, a hypothesis about literature: if you write well enough about a single subject, you needn't write about anything else."

This is a theory I've been interested in for a long time, particularly in regards to music writing. Lester Bangs is a good example of a music writer who managed to write about the important themes of life, just by writing about Lou Reed and all the other 70's rock stars he followed. His description of doomed musician Peter Laughner, who drank himself to death in his early twenties, is particularly memorable (from the book Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung).

As Lewis says of James (pg 95): "...statistics were beside the point. The point was understanding; the point was to make life on earth just a bit more intelligible."

Which is precisely what I want to achieve as a Writer and Web Technology Analyst.

My Rating of Moneyball: 9/10

"Don't get us wrong: superior tools and no talent still equals useless content. GENERATION C is and will continue to create heaps and heaps of crap which, at best, will be appreciated only by inner-circle friends and family.

However, when Canon (see above) tells consumers that its products 'leave one difference between you and a professional. They get paid', they're kind of behind already: talented members of GENERATION C actually DO get paid, as their stories, their observations, their articles, their pictures, their songs, and their books are noticed and bought by niche audiences, as well as (increasingly) by mass-media moguls eager for real-time, original content. Think thousands of 'My News' citizen reporters in South Korea, or tens of thousands of bloggers building personal brands (and thus warranting professional fees, and reaping advertising revenues)..."

Strong resonance with my post yesterday. Among other things (go read it - it's better than this post I'm writing now!) I wrote about my Big Idea to write a biography of Web 2.0. This is my idea to write a book about the current Web As Platform and social software bubble. It'll be a non-fiction book, where I travel and interview bloggers and developers - particularly on the West Coast of the USA.

I really want some feedback on that btw - is there something wrong with my comments system or something? Two-Way Web, my ass... ;-)