Lots of juicy chatter around the zlogosphere* about portals and platforms right now. Even Dave Winer is confused so it’s got to be getting serious.

* zlogs are blogs that have outgrown the common or garden blogosphere.

Keith Teare at edgio thinks the big portals, like Yahoo and Google, will gradually retract back from their Himalayan heights to the great wodge in the middle, while the outer edge, comprising small to medium publishers, will become relatively more important. His touchstone is the reported $180,000/month made by TechCrunch.

Scott Karp, who wrote something similar a week ago, believes platforms are the new portals.

Well, it’s old ground here in the zlogosphere as I’ve been banging on about content platforms for quite a while. Mathew Ingram questions the terms used in this discussion. “It’s just the language that is making things difficult. What is a ‘gateway’ or a ‘portal’ or a ‘platform?’ ”

Well, for what it’s worth, here’s Zyntagma Syntagma’s definition of a content platform — or network magazine, as we call them : “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.”

So the platform is the total distributed inventory within the unit, defined and networked as a magazine, or some other term. The portal is the place where it’s promoted as a single entity. The platform is the whole, the portal is the front page and contents list, to use print terminology.

To clarify that, we have three content platforms and three portals where they receive their organization and package branding.

Scott’s suggested receipts of $180,000/month per platform would give us an annual income of $6.5 million.

Long live the zlogosphere.

Keith Teare has an interesting post over on the Edgio blog, De-portalization and Internet Revenues.

He’s basically saying that the giant portals, like Yahoo and Google will gradually flatten out — see his great mountain graphics — in favour of content platforms from smaller publishers. These will use techniques to drive and distribute traffic flows and collectively become much more important, relatively speaking, than the big players.

Publisher driven revenue models will increasingly replace middlemen. There will be no successful advertiser driven models in the foothills, only publisher centric models. Successful platform vendors will put the publisher at the center of the world in a sellers market for eyeballs. There will be more publishers able to make $180,000 a month [like TechCrunch].

Regular readers will know that this is a viewpoint I’ve been pushing here for some time. He continues :

“Smart [software] companies will (a) help content find traffic by enabling its distribution. (b) help users find content that is widely dispersed by providing great search. (c) help the publishers in the rising foothills maximize the value of their publications.”

I really couldn’t put it better. Our philosophy in a nutshell. Great news that Edgio is going to roll out some supporting products in coming weeks.

One to watch.

I’m going to be working with a large media company for the next year, and this will mean a change of shape for Syntagma as I’ll have less time to devote to it.

We haven’t decided on how to play it yet, but it’s possible we may reduce the number of magazines, and archive some sites.

A strong possibility of a tie-up between the two companies exists, but will unfold, or not, over time. I would prefer to keep Syntagma independent, but some offers just can’t be refused.

This is a very exciting time for us here at Syntagma Towers. One thing you can be certain of is that the network will emerge stronger and more professional than ever.

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.

Syntagma Media is delighted to launch the latest in our financial series of information websites : On the Money, which will be part of our LifeTimes network magazine.

The site will cover what is usually called Macroeconomics, or fiscal and monetary trends.

Our authors are the Boston Bloggers, Andrea Paulsen, whose career is in insurance underwriting, and Clive Allen, who has a particular interest in the greenback.

On the Money supplements our two microeconomics sites : Money Finesse and The Money Blog, plus our eye on the consolidation of the world’s stock markets, LSE Latest.

That’s a question we all ask ourselves from time to time, especially in periods of transition.

Would I do anything differently with Syntagma Media if I knew what I know now?

The answer is pretty obvious : Yes, I’d go straight to where we’re going next without all the bits in between.

But life isn’t like that. We have to travel the long learning curve to get a rounded view of the basics and intermediates before we tackle the more complex areas.

So, where are we going next? I’m afraid I’m going to break the habit of a lifetime and stay partially dumb. Except …

This last week I’ve been reorganizing the inventory and the magazines — they will now have a more flexible content list. Where one site overlaps the readership of two mags, relevant posts will appear in each, for example. Syntagma will also appear in Phi.

As an interim measure, we’re cutting back on underperforming sites and merging similar sites that would do better together than apart. This will cut down on our admin and trim costs. We’re having a new general logo and a separate, initially-hidden, subset of sites, codenamed, Syntagma Confidential. And, no, these are not naughty sites, just experimental; the testbed of innovative ideas for the future.

The main bone of contention, though, has been the means of tackling the huge retail projects we still have in mind. In the light of the perceived — and actual — glass ceiling we’re grappling with to enter the upper echelons of this sector, I’m going to try out a smaller, less competitive, commercial sector in order to develop and attract the skills and infrastructure to tackle the Everest of retail mid-2007.

We’re also developing our growing inventory of new book serializations. Following Steve Newman’s continuing tour de force of the Hemingway serialization of his fictionalized biography of the author’s life, he’s now putting up his new Victorian crime novel, The Crime of the Crimea featuring the detective duo, Swann and Parker. This will be preceded by a juicy Christmas story : The Great Christmas Train Robbery, written exclusively for Syntagma readers. Watch out for this soon.

On another tack, we’ll be following the expected nuptials of Prince William to Kate Middleton on a separate, dedicated site. The huge tidal waves of traffic to our Royal Anecdotes offering, with the comments becoming a regular forum for every Royal fan and n*tc*se, tells us there’s a vast appetite for this subject out there. If every site in our network had the unique visitor stats of RA, we’d be close to the kind of traffic we need for a major breakthough in the biggest-ticket advertising.

But our main area of progress through 2007 will be in upgrading the backend technical side, plus unveiling a new template for our individual Wordpress websites. Small beer, perhaps, but necessary for our upcoming assault on mainstream media.

People always ask me why I’m so “obsessed” with advertising. The reason is simple : a content business lives by ad revenues alone. We don’t do subscriptions or direct sales (yet). Our entire stock of treasure comes from our advertisers, and those who click on Google Adsense.

It’s often not appreciated that professional content would virtually disappear from the internet were it not for advertising support. Yes, the big egos would still be there jostling for attention, but real writers would all but vanish.

So we value our advertisers past, present and still to come, and wish them a great December of sales, and, dare I say it, a very merry Christmas.

Many thanks to those of you who, in response to my previous post, sent emails full of ideas and advice. Most of it was very helpful, and assisted me in making up my mind.

Which is : I’ve decided that I’m going to cut back on my current workload, get my two books finished by new year, then pile into the project over the winter.

I’ll start modestly, see how it goes, take advice, then commit resources as needed, including quite a bit of outsourcing. All this will take place behind the scenes, so nothing will be visible until mid-2007.

My instinct told me I should go for broke on this one, but in the second year of the business I’m looking for profitability rather than endless expansion.

When you reach a certain age — 19 nowadays — you’re allowed to reminisce a little about your past. Not that I’m anything like 19, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Here’s a picture of the first national (UK) magazine I edited : Network User, all about telecoms and aimed at IT managers of major players like the banks, the London Stock Exchange and others of similar corporate weight.

I developed Network User from a small newsletter called simply, Network. The ugly brute of a burglar on the cover was actually our esteemed designer, Richard Downer, whose previous work included the famous illustrations on the front of Post Office telephone directories.

While we were shooting that pic, he was terrified the police would arrest him for attempted robbery. We had our replies ready : “No officer, I’ve never seen that man in my life.” — at least, that’s what we told him afterwards.

Looking through the magazine now, I still feel almost the same rush of heady excitement as seeing it for the first time, hot off the presses. Maybe because I’m a bit older, but I don’t quite get that same thrill when I look at anything I’ve done online.

Why? It’s too easy.

We sweated blood over that first issue of Network User in a way internet folk can’t imagine unless they’ve done it themselves.

We had a huge budget, employed the best people in their fields, were paid large salaries and had the run of late 1980s London, a place literally sizzling with excitement — probably something like Silicon Valley in its heyday.

Those were the days. We were Monarchs of all we surveyed and drove all before us. Champions, indeed.

But even great decades run their course. The flashy 80s were replaced by the boring 90s, and I headed to an isolated farmhouse in southern Spain with a nice view of Gibraltar and the Med. There I spent my time writing philosophy and growing avocados, apricots and figs.

Returning to England seven years later and wondering what to do with myself, I fell into the Web and blogging and started doing much the same as I’d done before. That is, producing network magazines.

So events turn full circle in the end. What creatures of habit we are.

Syntagma Media has now firmed up plans for two new network magazines, both dedicated to the retail market and advertising. They are:

ShopShape UK
Retailz USA

Both will cover a number of new Wordpress websites on all aspects of retail therapeutics, like upmarket shirts, fine wines, and luxury travel goods.

The first to go up will be Royal Marriage, a site dedicated to the upcoming Royal wedding between future King, Prince William, and Kate Middleton (see our site Royal Anecdotes for current coverage).

We will, for the first time be accepting applications from external websites (blog software based) to be included in these publications.