Rise of the riffraff in Pajamas

BLOG IN

Is blogging the next big thing? Is blogging a big thing? Is blogging anything at all? These questions have occupied the minds and column space of every tech pundit and his Sony Aibo for a while now. While many vociferously argue that it is indeed the next best thing (“two lakh enterprises”, “bigger than the dotcom boom”, etc) and many insist — out of pragmatism, myopic vision or sheer ignorance — it is hard to say, that it isn’t anything at all, this month is likely to witness the emergence of blogging as a contender for the “big thing” tag, if not the “next big thing” tag.

Blogging’s biggest hurdle in becoming a major phenomenon is financial viability. If bloggers can make a decent supplementary income, if not a living, their writing would surely get more professional, accurate, and reliable, making it a marketer’s dream medium with targeted ads.

So when Weblogs Inc, a blog network that trades ads for blog posts, was bought this week by Amazon for a rumoured price of $25-35 million, the enthusiasm around blogging among venture capitalists and out-of-job journalists alike peaked. The blogosphere is mostly united in its optimism for networks that operate on more or less the same business model.

But even that optimism does not explain the extreme reactions evoked by Pajamas Media, “a new blogging venture designed to bring together the Internet’s brightest minds and most compelling content into a single source that will, in turn, complement and re-define journalism in the 21st century”.

The name is sweet revenge on an ex-CBS executive who dismissed bloggers during the Dan Rather scandal as “riff-raff in pajamas”. Pajamas Media will launch next Wednesday.

Pajamas Media’s goal is to become a one-stop-shop for readers and advertisers that will feature top quality content drawn from a network of bloggers; and to become a blog news network. Much of its business model remain under wraps, though.

Whether PM, with some heavy duty blogging names on board, succeeds or not is immaterial. That blog-based business ventures are being formed and are being bankrolled and that many reputed bloggers and journalists are willing to stake their names on them, are signposts of times ahead.

Tech pundit and ex-editor of Forbes ASAP, Michael S Malone, says, “Five years from now, the blogosphere will have developed into a powerful economic engine that has all but driven newspapers into oblivion, has created a whole new group of major companies and media superstars.

Billions of dollars will be made by those prescient enough to either get on board or invest in these companies.”

Blog-in is DNA’s weekly take on the blogosphere. Email: blogin@dnaindia.net