The first round of blogs in the Syntagma Media Network is nearing completion. We have current capacity for nine sites and that was always going to set the upper limit for the opening tranche of network blogs.

Once we’ve garnered enough traffic to get decent PageRank for round one blogs, we’ll begin rolling out round two, probably spring next year. At that time, we also envisage taking on bloggers to run them.

Our 9th and final blog is “Vista Office”, which will cover both Windows Vista and Office 12, both due for release late next year. The blog will be launched before New Year, thus completing a very satisfactory 2005 for us.

Slip over to Make The World Better for a discussion on the winter solstice, which happens on Thursday. Could this ancient Norse festival become the centrepiece of a new world celebration at this time of year, complementing our own Christmas a few days later?

Many non-Christians feel a bit left out of things at the end of December. So why not include everybody in an additional festival for the natural rhythms of the earth and universe? Everyone could surely agree on that.

Visitors who read sidebars may have noticed that our Paranormal Watch blog has morphed into “Supernatural”. This is because it was the only blog in our stable which hasn’t made steady progress since launch.

On reflection, I decided that the name was a put-off, probably too scientific for the subject matter, and it needed a makeover. So Supernatural it is. Needless to say the URL stays the same.

We’re going to do yet another makeover on the site, so stay tuned if you like to be scared witless [Slight exaggeration].

There’s a new feature over at Tertiary Blogging. It a Tertiary Blogging Jobs column, which can be found in the sidebar.

Currently, there are two: a software project from guru.com (not strictly blogging), and a call for Google bloggers.

Weblogs Inc., which is looking for bloggers for its unofficial Google blog, wants writers who fit the following spec:

* Have a deep background in following the development of Google and all its services and features.
* Have an even longer background tracking the online search industry, for perspective and context.
* Be more than just a reporter. All points of the viewpoint spectrum are welcome to apply, save the extremes: no anti-Google or Google fanboy agendas would fit here. If you’re fair, any editorial stance can probably work.
* Be an experienced blogger. If not, be an experienced professional writer in other formats. If neither, be one hell of a natural. Natural, unproven talents do make it in here.
* Be willing to submit sample entries if you don’t have a blogging portfolio to show off. Taking the initiative, so I don’t have to ask, gets my attention.

The “I” in there is Brad Hill, but doesn’t he sound like Jason Calacanis? Same inflections and tone of command.

If you want to broaden out your blogging to take in paid employment (self-employed), then keep an eye on the sidebar in Tertiary Blogging. I’m sure there’ll be many more goodies to come.

Karakatoa! the G-guys have done it again. This time it’s an autoresponder in Gmail.

So, if you’re going on holiday this Christmas / New Year, read this: Gmail ~ How do I set up an automatic vacation response?

Check out Syntagma Media’s Google Future Watch Blog to stay abreast of the Google experience.

I’m delighted to welcome Matt of BlogMedia Inc to SYNTAGMA. He’s been kind enough to give us an interview and explain the aims of his two blog-watching sites, which are now essential reading for anyone in the blog network scene.

John: Hello Matt. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. First of all, could you give me a rundown of your interests in the blogosphere?

Matt: I’m Director of Marketing for BlogMedia, Inc. and the editor of Blog Network Watch. I keep my last name private - such that it is in today’s world. As far as interests go, I’ve long been interested in the social aspects of online interaction. As far back as high school, when the internet was really just about email and IRC, I was looking into how people interact with others online. In college, this was a large area of focus of mine in my computer science classes - how do people interact socially online. The web changed all of that, of course.

To me, blogging was the first step of mass social interaction online where the user has the power. Even my wife, who is not very technologically savvy, was able to set up a weblog and post to it regularly without any issues.

What’s commonly referred to as Web 2.0 is really just the next level of online social interaction - tools like RSS/Atom, Podcasting, Flickr, mash-ups, etc. are all technologies that are linking conversations together.

Outside of that, I’m interested in gadgets, criminal justice policy issues, hot software, and Apple’s hardware.

John: What prompted you to pick up Blog Network Watch after Martin Neumann scrapped it?

Matt: Generally, we look for niche ideas where we have a passion to write or develop something within that niche. I have a huge passion for blogging and have long followed the adventures of Weblogs Inc and Gawker Media. Buying Blog Network Watch gave us a good, established domain name and some feed subscribers, and a niche that we were interested in.

John: Do you have a personal mission for your work in the blogosphere?

Matt: Not really - I just enjoy reading and writing about blogging.

John: What’s your assessment of the blog network scene right now, given the sale of Weblogs Inc?

Matt: I think that the original two large networks - Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc have set the pace for others to follow. As I wrote in Martin on Blog Network “Watching“, there are serious contenders in the blog network game - and then there is everyone else.

The serious contenders are the ones with great content, strong management, good infrastructure, and a solid business plan. Gawker, Weblogs Inc, b5media, and probably Fine Fools, all fit into that category. 9rules probably does too - but as I’ve said before, I’m still trying to understand what they’re up to. There are likely others but those are the ones that come to mind immediately.

There are alot of folks jumping into the game right now - and that competition is good. The barrier to entry is very very low. Even on shared hosting, someone could setup a decent blog network with 2-3 blogs using Wordpress or Movable Type or even Blogger and make a very decent living - particularly for someone in college or just starting out in the world. I think 2006 will bring us even more blog networks.

John: How do you react to the explosive launch of b5media?

Matt: How I react? I’m happy to see that they’re growing - I like to see people be successful - and I’m happy for Jeremy and Darren whom I know from their blogs and other works. You’d be hard pressed to find two nicer and more genuine people.

I’ve not taken the time to read through all of their blogs to see the quality of their content, etc. That is something I’d like to do down the road to get a better feel for some of the blog networks.

b5 has had their difficulties with their infrastructure. It’s not unexpected that something like that might happen. They took the heat and moved on. We’ll see more from them down the road, I do wish them well.

John: Do you have a view on how blog networks will pan out in 2006?

Matt: I think we’ll continue to see more growth - blog networks will grow - and new blog networks will launch. Some will die and move by the wayside. I suspect we’ll see some more consolidation, acquisitions, and mergers as well. And we’ll be here to watch it at blognetworkwatch.com and rank them at blognetworklist.com.

John: Thanks, Matt, you’ve certainly given us food for thought. Much appreciated.

Announcing a new Syntagma Media blog on the way.

Sometime before Christmas, we’ll be launching Make the World Better ~ MakeWorldBetter.org.

The subject speaks for itself, and we’ll be calling on everyone to send in suggestions and advice.

Just in time for Christmas.

Update: This site is now up. Visit here: Make The World Better.

There have been some bloodcurdling reports recently about bloggers being subjected to threats, and even violence, by paranoid individuals who read too much into blog chatter.

The most recent case is still embargoed so I can’t give anything but the most sketchy information. A well-known, and well-liked, blogger (let’s call him Daniel), was assailed in his own home by a man who had tracked him down. This individual had taken against Daniel because of extremely negative remarks made against him by another blogger, who had some sort of grudge against him, or just wanted the publicity.

Maybe the motive for the posts was simply Googlejuice. Nothing excites a crowd in the blogosphere more than a good scrap. Unfortunately for Daniel, the scrap wasn’t conducted under the Queensberry Rules of boxing, and tipped over the edge a bystander who clearly had psychotic, even psychopathic, tendencies.

Daniel has said that the situation is now under control, but what does this, and similar, incidents tell us about protecting our own security?

Syntagma Media’s newest blog, Tertiary Blogging, will be running posts on Blogger Security as a regular feature. So, if you want to protect yourself against incursions of this kind, stay in touch. We’ll also keep tabs on the Daniel case.

There’s an alleyway in the city of Exeter, England, called Parliament Street. It’s incredibly ancient and has a width of only 2.5 feet. It’s lost status over the centuries because Exeter no longer has a parliament. But it still has a road sign and is kept up by the city council.

When I passed the narrow crack that is Parliament Street this afternoon, I was reminded of the typical business model of an Internet startup. Some imagination, huh? But think about it.

What’s hard to navigate, difficult to discern, impossible to pass, going nowhere, and has no apparent purpose? You’ve got it in one. I won’t labour the analogy or it might fall apart.

So, what is the business model of Syntagma Media? Blog networks are really just individual blogs clustered under one banner, usually by ownership, but sometimes just for warmth.

The business model is that of a single blog writ large, except that numbers almost always suggest a commercial purpose. And SynMed is no different from all the others.

First we get PageRank. The advertising dotted around now is just notional, to remind readers that the content has to be paid for eventually. After receiving decent PR, we’ll seek to monetize it in various ways, none of them much different from all the other networks out there.

Do we intend fattening the bird up for market? If you think like that early on, you’ll never succeed, because the blogs will feel temporary and empty of enthusiasm.

So, no, they’re not being readied for sale. Further down the line, who knows what may happen. There may be mergers and acquisitions, strange detours, unexpected sleights of hand.

One thing’s for sure, though, the business plan will be more like Whitehall, London than Parliament Street, Exeter when we’ve finished.

Update: We’ve just made a decision that all Syntagma Media blogs will run text ads only, apart from one relevant book ad from Amazon in the sidebar. Exceptions will be the tech blogs, which will also run equipment ads. This means AdSense (or similar) between posts, and our own in-house version of text ads. These will be rolled out over time.