As I look through our stats for November, one thing is clear, they have increased threefold since the introduction of our network magazine format.

Although November was a good month overall, by interpolating a little, I’ve been able to calculate roughly the effects of the new organization.

Our top two sites have notched up over 50,000 unique visitors, and even the slower ones have more or less tripled their October performances.

The reason is fairly clear : with a more organized structure, traffic is moving along pathways not previously available, and flows from the centre are adding to the “own traffic” of each site.

Moreover, intersite traffic has increased substantially too. And while it’s not quite exponential, it’s still rather remarkable.

So, far December is following the same path, and while much can be put down to the Christmas spirit, the new network factor is accounting for the bulk of the improvements.

After the successful launch of all three of our network magazines, I’ve now had some time to assess their functions and advantages better.

Today, I’ve been able to go around the Syntagma Media network of 50 sites, selecting pieces to be showcased in the mags. What immediately struck me was the fantastic range and depth of interests the network covers. Even I was impressed, and I put it all together in the first place.

My point is that the three mags throw a sharp focus on the sites and their content in a way that a sprawling array of 50 domains can never do. Judging by the remarkable stats we’ve had for Allusionz and Phi, many visitors think so too.

Another advantage is that they give a big boost to less trafficked sites, which of necessity all large networks have. In a magazine portal presentation, your least visited site can be seen sitting alongside your most visited, benefiting in the process. Each magazine, although wide-ranging in terms of topics, attracts a similar kind of reader, and connections will be made and traffic driven that wouldn’t happen otherwise. It really does work.

So, what is a “network magazine” and how does it differ from other magazines online? Here’s my definition :

A network magazine is a content platform that brings together a range of websites on multi-domains from the same network, and which are of interest to a similar readership.

They also aspire to adopt print media values and quality, mainly through using experts in their field with a track record of writing offline. No publication can survive with a bunch of duffers.

I’ve no doubt there are many other subtle advantages with the format that I’m not seeing just yet. The only disadvantage is that it adds more work to an already crowded day.

But, to paraphrase the ads : I do it because they’re worth it.

The three Syntagma Network Magazines are :

Allusionz (Arts and Philosophies)
21st-century Phi (Sciences and Future Technologies)
LifeTimes (Lifestyles and Celebrities)

Syntagma Media is proud to announce the launch of our second network magazine, 21st-century Phi.

Designed by upcoming design champ Thord Hedengren, it covers the sciences and future technologies stream in our network of 50 Wordpress websites.

As before with Allusionz, there are still features to go up and a couple of sites to resurrect. We’ll be doing that over the next week or so.

Incidentally, Phi is a letter of the Greek alphabet that’s used by science to describe the mathematical formula behind a spiral form that occurs over and over in nature. The spiral of a conch shell is phi. We don’t choose names at random, you know.

Our third network magazine, LifeTimes — lifestyles and celebrities — is going up in a few days, to judge by the speed Thord gets things done.

If you’re a technology addict who can’t get enough of the stuff, please don’t sigh, just read Phi.

Syntagma Media is delighted to announce our newest addition to the network : Startstruck, part of our 21st-century Phi network magazine.

Starstruck is not, as you might think, yet another celebrity website, but deals with the more weighty topic — in every sense — of astronomy.

Have you ever wondered what’s going on “out there”? Believe me, there’s a lot. Did you know about the 350 mile storm currently raging on Saturn, with an “eye” that looks out balefully to the rest of the Solar System?

Do you follow the 11-year cycle of Solar storms and Sunspots that correlate so well with the stockmarkets and the 11-year business cycle?

No? Well, now you can keep up to date with the universe, the galaxy and the Sun’s little local village, by tuning in to Starstruck.

Our authors are the Boston(ish) Bloggers, Clive Allen and Andrea Paulsen who probably have their eyes glued to a telescope at this moment. Let’s hope they don’t get abducted by aliens for giving away too many of their secrets.

Definitely one for the diary and the RSS feed.

I’m getting a few queries about our new portal pages for our three network magazines, Allusionz, LifeTimes and 21st-century Phi, so here’s an update.

The first portal, Allusionz, is now well underway and looking good. It’s being designed by an excellent, but as yet unnamed Web designer, who’s making all the right decisions along the way.

I’m very happy with progress so far, and it looks like it just may get launched this month — way ahead of any schedule I’d been working to.

The other two should follow swiftly as they’ll use more or less the same code.

Following that, our shadowy design guru will create a new template for the whole network, which should be fun. The portals will then be updated with new graphical links and the overall concept finally revealed.

Doing a bit of preliminary research for the three upcoming portal pages for our Network Magazines, I stumbled on a rather obvious fact — obvious if you think about it, that is.

People click many times more often on the graphical links on this site than they do on the text links between sites on our other inventory. Syntagma is the only one of our sites which boasts a full graphical representation of the whole network. On all other sites, we just have a textual “blogroll”.

Even allowing for the higher traffic levels here than on most of our other sites, the advantage of a graphical link is shown to be very strong.

Reproducing the Syntagma sidebar across the network, though, would take up valuable pixels assigned to advertising, which is why we don’t do it.

Warning : Those who continually complain about the array of colours in our sidebar, had better avoid our new portal pages. They will be there in all their glory.

We will, though, round off the corners and, since there will be fewer titles in each mag, they’ll be larger and more interesting.

Oh, and more colourful too.

Mind how you go.

After all the excitement of the launch of b5media’s portal page, including The Blog Herald’s extensive low-impact coverage, we can announce that we are working on three new Network Magazines :

* Mind, Body, Spirit — title to be announced.
* Finance and Investment — title TBA.
* Automotive matters — title TBA.

These will join our soon-to-be launched triumvirate of mags : Allusionz, LifeTimes and 21st-century Phi, whose portals we are currently working on.

The three new proposals will be launched February through April, meeting our target of six Network Magazines in our second year of operations.

Our quickening pace of growth, however, means we may well comfortably exceed our initial targets.

Like everything else in life, especially in the commercial sphere, blog networks need a focus, a sharp brand, a hook to hang your hat on.

Evan Williams (founder of Blogger.com) recognized that when he reconsidered his podcasting company, Odeo. His mea culpa at The Future of Web Apps conference was brilliant and should be read by all blog network owners, especially journalists following the space.

After buying out his shareholders in Odeo, he writes today that his mistakes were : “not focusing the product, building for other people, raising too much money too soon, etc.”

Blog networks are just the same. If you have a sprawling inventory of 50 or 200 websites, they have to hang together in some recognizable way, both by branding and connectivity. “Channels” are not enough. It’s an engineering term, not a publishing one, and doesn’t resonate with the wider audience.

Evan Williams’s new business philosophy is very similar to the one we started with here at Syntagma. He puts it this way :

* Build things cheaply and rapidly by keeping teams small and self-organized.

* Leverage technology, know-how, and infrastructure across products (but brand them separately, so they’re focused and easy to understand).

Focusing and branding are the key issues here, as is separating the operator from the product. Astonishingly, some Web businesses make no distinction between them. If a new reader alights on your main page and says, “what is it?”, you’re in trouble.

At Syntagma, we’ve started that process by arranging our inventory into three Network Magazines : Allusionz (Arts and Philosophy), LifeTimes (Lifestyles and Celebrities) and 21st-century Phi (Sciences and Future Technologies).

Magazines (French for “shops/stores”) are understood by everyone and immediately break down that public barrier to “blog networks”. You can see how they pan out in the sidebar.

The next step is to add the connectivity and the public face of the magazines, while further developing and adding to the websites already in place.