b5media abandons wide model in favor of uber blogs

Blog network b5media is today beginning the largest restructure in its 4 year history, abandoning the wide blog model it was founded on in place of a series of content related uber blogs.

b5media made steps in this direction last year, when it started to create portals for its groups of blogs, however today’s step is a much more radical step for the company.

I spoke with CEO Jeremy Wright prior to today’s launch of the first blog rollup. Wright told me that while the earlier attempts at portal creation did well, they lacked on a couple of fronts. The original portals lacked content themselves, so although they fronted as a newspaper or media site, links went back to the individual blogs. Wright said as a strategy it confused visitors, and limited cross promotion opportunities between blogs.

The new uber blogs follw the same path taken by Silicon Alley Insider, ReadWriteWeb and others, roughly based on the Huffington Post model of multiple content streams under the one headline/ brand. Blogs exist under this structure, but more as sub-blogs, sometimes with their own branding within the site; something closer to a newspaper column.

And this is what b5media is starting to roll out today. First out of the gate is a relaunch of Splendicity, a site covering women’s things like beauty and makeup. Existing blogs, where the writers have been retained (some blogs are closing, although Wright didn’t specifiy which ones) come into Splendicity on a splendicity.com/blogname. Each existing blog maintains branding, although with a sub-header below the Splendicity brand within the site.

I asked Wright what he saw as the advantages of the move. Advertising, given the current economic climate naturally was a key reason. He explained (and as we’ve noted here previously) that selling ads on one big site is far easier a proposition that many small sites, even when the sum total of traffic is the same. Wright also noted that managing 40 odd separate blogs within a vertical created logistical issues with what they can do with ads; for example background/ theme brand campaigns, and even work with affiliate links/ ads.

Wright said that the move to larger sites also had other advantages that while not financial, would help with growth. One point: bloggers seeking PR material or exclusive information would be better placed representing a large blog with substantial figures, vs one of 300 odd smaller blogs. Think the advantages of scale and branding.

Notably the shift to the one site per vertical also sees a radical change in the way b5media pays its bloggers. The company was founded (disclosure, I was a founder) on performance driven payment, initially on a revenue share basis, and later on a traffic basis. Wright tells me that b5media has assessed its content mix and come to the conclusion that it can be worthwhile rewarding quality content that doesn’t always drive the highest page views. As the new sites roll out, bloggers will be offered a mix of performance and set rate (and where appropriate with bonus) payments. The short version is that b5media is moving in a signficant way towards fixed rate payments to bloggers.

Wright was also enthusiastic about taking community beyond comments alone. Although not launched today, Wright said that b5media was looking at adding social aspects to the uber blogs, something that’s far easier to implement and manage with smaller numbers.

Other b5media verticals will be rolled into uberblogs in the coming months, roughly on a 2 week timetable per vertical. The rough equation is 300 blogs going into 6, although Wright noted that they may maintain some stand alone blogs in their celebrity/ gossip vertical given the particularly high traffic some recieve.

It’s a smart move from b5media. The name of the game is to build strong brands that scale in a tight market. The model the company was founded on did work for a long time, but the market has changed. The only thing I don’t like about what is being launched today is the look of Splendicity, but Jeremy and I never agreed an aesthetics…and a number of other things. Bucket loads of win.

I’m also going to call this the end of the wide blog model. b5media was a widest of the wide, and in 3 months time it will have less sites than Gawker Media. It was fun while it lasted.