$10 For Crying Out Loud
Outbrain is a company I like a lot. It has a seemingly simple product that provides some very useful functionality: content rating and recommendations for blogs.
Follow the easy installation instructions and Outbrain will allow your readers to give your latest post a 1-5 score. Then, based on Outbrain’s massive database of reader tastes and web content, the Outbrain widget that displays on your blog will point visitors to related articles that Outbrain has determined they might find interesting.
Yes, it directs visitors away from your blog, but it also has the potential to turn your site a mini-destination site. (You can see Outbrain at work on my blog – scroll to the end of any post.) While Outbrain is just for blogs now (WordPress, Blogger and TypePad are among the services supported), it will undoubtedly expand to cover other types of online publications.
When the company raised a sizable second round of financing earlier this year, a lot of brows were furrowed: $12 million for a blog plug-in? Investors must have had a sneak preview of the company’s latest feature, launched earlier this month: an enhancement that allows publishers to pay for premium placement of their content.
The new goodie is called OutLoud and it costs $10 per URL. Featured content appears at the top of the Outbrain recommendations list and is clearly labeled. Without OutLoud, Outbrain uses its own algorithms to suggest content.
OutLoud can be used in two ways. A publisher can let Outbrain control which sponsored recommendations appear; Outbrain will then split revenue with the blog publisher.
Alternatively, a publisher can set up the OutLoud service to work as an internal referral engine: only URLs from the publisher will appear. This can be used to generate more traffic within a single property or on a network of sites owned by the same publisher.
At first glance, $10 might seem like a no brainer for a small to medium sized online publisher, but it quickly adds up. And the $10 fee per URL is only for a month. You have to pay up if you want the sponsored link to keep going.
Outbrain says that the service is aimed at a number of target clients:
- Marketers who want to drive word-of-mouth by amplifying positive reviews about their company.
- Individual bloggers who want to promote their most brilliant posts.
- Public relations professionals looking for new ways to distribute releases
- Social media gurus who can push out articles from a corporate blog to drive traffic.
For publishers looking to generate additional revenue, OutLoud certainly looks promising, although it will take some time before the service has the critical mass to add up to more than just some extra change. On the other hand, it’s free to install and Outbrain doesn’t add its own branding or links back to the Outbrain site.
Outbrain was founded by Yaron Galai and Ori Lahav. The 25-person company has headquarters in New York with R&D in Israel. The latest round was led by Carmel Ventures with previous investors Gemini, Lightspeed and GlenRock Israel filling out the round. Total raised to date: just over $18 million.
Brian Blum heads Blum Interactive Media, a consulting firm which specializes in writing for and about interactive media – from market research and business intelligence to blog writing and video production.
7 reasons publishers don’t need to blog every day
I’ve always felt that I’ve been an under-performer when it comes to updating my blog. Unlike some of my more prolific colleagues, I’m in general a once a week poster, both on the AIMGrouip.com blog and on my own site. I like to take my time, collate references, and create a thoughtful 800-word essay.
Now it turns out, I’m not such a bad boy after all. I recently stumbled across this article on Leo Babauta’s Write to Done blog. A guest writer (with the improbable name Bamboo Forest) suggests that it’s not posting frequency but the quality of the content that’s key. “People don’t line up to subscribe to a blog (just) because it’s spitting out three posts a day,” Forest says.
Here are 7 reasons why less frequent posting is not only OK, but may be better for your blog’s traffic. These are important lessons for publishers and media companies that maintain a blog but don’t have the staff (or available hours) to keep up a daily routine.
1. More posts mean you can’t weed out the duds.
When you’re rapidly posting several times a day, not all your posts are going to be top notch. Some will be mediocre at best. And that not-so-stellar article is going to be at the top of your blog, at least for a while.
2. Your blog is judged by the front page.
If you post too often, it won’t be long before some of your posts drop off the front page of your blog, relegated to the “previous posts” button or even into the monthly archive. Not a lot of people go trawling through back articles. So you want your best posts to be at the top, to give your readers an incentive to keep coming back.
3. Posts improve with time.
Whenever I write – whether it’s for this blog or a document for a client – I never submit it the moment I’m done. I’ll put it in the digital drawer for several hours, maybe even wait until the morning to finish it. I’ll always find something to change or add to make the piece that much more compelling. Don’t your readers deserve the same attention to detail?
4. People read many blogs.
The people who follow your blog are also perusing many others. If they use an RSS reader, it’s even worse. If you post too frequently, your busy readers may miss some of your posts – perhaps even your best ones. Give your fans the time to consume all of your great writing.
5. Less frequency generates more comments.
The longer a post stays on your front page, the more comments it can collect. A post without comments can be damning – it says to readers that no one is really visiting, so why should I?
6. Open up your blog to guest posts.
Guest posts on your blog let you fill in gaps when you get too busy (hopefully with paying clients) to blog that day or week, and the cross-linking is a great way to build traffic. If you’re doing all of the posting yourself, several times a day, there’s not much room for the out of towners.
7. Readers do not unsubscribe from too few posts.
Your followers won’t unsubscribe if you only post once a week. But if you publish uninspiring content, you’ll drive away readers you could have otherwise retained.
Brian Blum heads Blum Interactive Media, a consulting group that works with companies to jumpstart their businesses through comprehensive product planning and strategy.
Blogs trump social networks in purchase decisions
You’re in the market for a new computer or camera or pair of pants. Who do you trust? Facebook likes to trumpet the value of “trusted referrals”—endorsements from your friends – but the real buzz is still from the blogosphere.
A new study from Jupiter Research found that half of all those surveyed who identify as “blog readers” (that is, people who read more than one blog per month, a fifth of total survey respondents) say that blogs are important to them when it comes to making purchasing decisions.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they trust the blogs. Only 15 percent of blog readers, and five percent of those surveyed said that the blog actually helped them make a reliable purchase decision. Not so hot? But social network recommendations were even lower: only ten percent of blog readers, and four percent of all those surveyed.
Results of the survey are similar when it comes to advertising: a quarter of “blog readers” say they trust ads on blogs that they read compared to only 19 percent on social networks.
Perhaps the most interesting take away: only a fifth of the total respondents said they read a blog at least once a month. If that’s the case, blogs may be a whole lot less a part of Web surfing than we tend to think. Or maybe, as design differences between blogs and mainstream Web sites continue to blur, people don’t actually realize they’re reading a blog.
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