Eight Mistakes for Online Publishers
There’s an interesting and useful article over at USC Online Journalism Review on the top mistakes made by new online publishers by Robert Niles.
I hang my head and admit I’ve made nearly all of them. In fact, as I read the piece, I had an uncanny impression he was writing about me. Paranoid, or what?
The main mistake I hold my hand up to is #5) Telling the world what you are doing… before you actually do it. Former print publishers are particularly prone apparently. Well, whadderyaknow.
Enough mea culpa. If you’re new to online publishing, or even quite experienced, it’s well worth a look.
If, like moi (he says hopefully), you’ve burned off all your mistakes, you can enjoy the warm satisfaction of having been there, done that, and got the body armour.
Before I forget, the redoubtable Bob Cringely has a great article this week on how venture capitalists’ roles have changed in the new Ajaxed internet. As usual, impeccably researched and written.
Good article you linked to there, John - great insights.
Yeah, I guess you did #5 pretty well.
Personally, I like the low key approach, quietly launched and surprise them.
Anyhow, we’re all learning this new game of online publishing.
BTW, on more important matters … Here comes the Ashes!!!
(by tea time tomorrow ’tis all over, me mate!) 
By Martin Neumann on December 16th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Ashes? What are they? I disown them.
Incidentally, Martin, what’s the inside track on the Blog Herald? Everyone except Tony has bolted the lair. Any particular reason for that?
By John Evans on December 16th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
The Ashes are a historical representation of the the dominance Australia has had over …
I’ll email you privately on the other issue.
By Martin Neumann on December 16th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
I, um, think everybody saw that you did #5 pretty well
..
However, I think I am doing #8 pretty well .. having unrealistic goals. I should be rich, famous, problogging or even retired by now ~ There’s this saying “don’t quit your dayjob” but, sometimes at the end of the day it seems that I hypothetically DID .. when I’m unproductive and lose focus at times getting lost out here in blogblogland.
By HART (1-800-HART) on December 16th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Martin, technically, as I write, England are the holders of the Ashes.
Thanks for the other email.
By John Evans on December 17th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
HART, I think Niles is right, you can make money at online publishing. Syntagma Media more than covers its costs and makes a reasonable profit which is growing all the time. It’s a flourishing business.
But you do have to prune back hard when the blog winter arrives, and keep focused on producing worthy content for your audience. Pure SEO is not worth the effort, though some smart SEO allied with great copy, will make the difference.
The real disappointment, for me, though, is the mountain still to climb to scale up to mainstream standards and advertisers. We are gradually getting there, but the path is different from the one normally laid out for a “blog network”, so I’m having to feel my way in the dark.
Also, the big buy-outs of networks appears to be over. Unless, of course, the new rolling purchases idea, mentioned by Cringely, applies to medium-sized content networks. We shall see.
By John Evans on December 17th, 2006 at 12:11 pm