September 22nd,2005

The End of Day 1

By Jeremy Wright

Wow…

I’m floored. I really am. Day 1 of b5 was just insane. Some of the reasons it was insane are good (over 100 applications, at least as many links, hundreds of comments and lots of smiles all around the virtual b5 offices), and some of the reasons were harder (getting flack, missing the mark on calling it “new”, etc).

But it was an experience I’ll never forget. I took off a bit of time yesterday to clear my head and take a break, and I feel better already. Over the next few days we’ll be picking up the pieces, improving things that simply didn’t have time to be improved for launch (like getting onto our own server, one of these days).

Here are some of the things on our list:

- get new templates live (with the help of Peter Flaschner over at The Blog Studio)
- get authors’ photos and bios on each blog
- get author profile pages on main b5media site up (ie: extended info on our fantastic authors!)
- do weekly interviews with authors
- do a “consistency” check on all blogs: make sure they’re using the same permalink structures, designs, emails… The niggly bits!
- get ads up, as appropriate
- starting tying the network together (Weblogs, Inc. has done a great job at allowing you to find other blogs in the network from anywhere in the network)
- build tools to make information on the blogs easier for our authors to find out (ahem, so I don’t need to spend 2 hours every day updating everyone on their stats)… Update: I’ve aded Shortstats, a Wordpress plugin, to all blogs. The authors are digging it!
- update (thanks Jesse): description of blogs added to each blog

That’s just what I can think of off the top of my head, though we also (obviously) have to respond to a number of applications, and then talk through what the next steps are for new blogs.

Realistically, we aren’t going to be launching a big group of blogs until at least mid-October. We might launch one or two before then that didn’t quite make it into the initial round, but all applications yesterday and today will be geared towards the next round.

Largely this is because we really want our authors to feel comfortable, confident and for them to get the attention they deserve. Whether it’s the Flightnest guys live-blogging the emergency landing of a Jet Blue Airbus at LAX or Jacob over at the Sports Blog covering the exciting wind-down to the MLB season, we want them to have the space to do interesting and great things.

And that takes time, which is what we’re going to give them.

We have a lot ahead of us, but if we keep our eyes on our authors and our readers I’m sure we’ll do fine. I appreciate all the feedback we’ve had so far. As I noted yesterday, it’s been impossible to read it all, but if you feel like you want to talk you can always drop me a line (email or by Skype at jeremy_wright).

Have a great rest of your week, and weekend, everyone :)

The Conversation

Jesse J. Anderson on September 22nd, 2005 at 10:46

You’ve already mentioned this as something you’re planning to address, but when i browsed the network yesterdya the thing that stood out most to me is I couldn’t seem to find out anything about (a) the author(s) of the blog, they’re background info or anything and (b) what the specific blog was about - sometimes it was obvious but othertimes it was not.

Thanks and good luck!

Jeremy Wright on September 22nd, 2005 at 10:47

Jesse: Great points. I’d forgotten about b). I’ll add it to the list now :)

Mark Wade on September 22nd, 2005 at 11:36

And you found time to post a comment on my Blog?

Wow!

As Paul Short might say - Dude, you’ve made a friend for life!

Mark

Blogaholics on September 22nd, 2005 at 14:36

More on my involvement in b5

So, as you may have taken a wander over to b5 already, it won’t come as as surprise that I announce my two new b5-based blogs: Cooking Gadgets - this one came out of a pattern I was noticing…

Alex Blonski on September 22nd, 2005 at 17:32

Boy do I have the perfect site for you:

http://rattai.yia.ca/kevin/index.php?/archives/56-Stress-Management.html

Some great gems like:

1. Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.

6. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

17. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

LOL

Marketing Vortex » Well Fellas, Blog Networks are not that bad. Really! on September 22nd, 2005 at 23:37

[…] However, Jeremy & Co. have been getting some flack at places like this and this. […]

LexBlog Blog on September 23rd, 2005 at 08:55

Blog network launched

Shel Hotz reports on the launch of a blog network by blog veterans Jeremy Wright, Duncan Riley and Darren Rowse. Conventional wisdom suggests only a handful of bloggers can make a living at the craft. Jeremy Wright and two colleagues…

maruthi on September 25th, 2005 at 10:58

How about having a forum on this blog? You could have some section(s) restricted to the authors and others could be open to everyone. A lot of topics like running of the network, traffic levels, learnings etc could be discussed in the forum and it definitely would be very lively and interesting. Of course we could do this through comments, but forums have their own appeal.

Jeremy Wright on September 25th, 2005 at 11:38

Maruthi: That’s an idea we’ve been tossing around. We’re definitely doing a forum for authors. I suppose doing a general one as well couldn’t hurt :)

maruthi on September 25th, 2005 at 20:39

Wow, thats great. Am definitely looking forward to it. I think you guys will be doing a lot of new things in b5media. All the best.

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