How to Kill a Community?
Building a community of loyal, active readers is difficult, time consuming process fraught with dangers. So why, in the last 24 hours, have two major online publications put the loyalty of their communities in jeopardy? I’m not comparing the two cases, one is simply questionable behaviour while the other is downright despicable. So what am I talking about?
ProBlogger “Community Consulting”
I’ve been a reader of Pro Blogger for a long time. Its a very useful resource on blogging written by one of the most respected sources in this growing industry. A while back they ran a community consulting feature where the readers of the ProBlogger gave constructive criticism on another reader’s blog. Fine. Mobilising a blog’s readership to help someone out is a great idea and has been used in other areas of media for a long time. However, yesterday Darren Rowse, the blogger behind Pro Blogger announced that for the next round of community consulting, there would be a charge.
I commented on the post, and said the following:
It seems like a fair price, my only concern is that by charging, and by charging 250 (it’s not cheap), you’re unlikely to attract the sort of bloggers who really need it. i.e. the ones who are struggling, and who’s blogs don’t generate enough income to justify it.
I would have thought that when you started the original idea one of the aims would have been to help out blogs who are struggling. If they’re struggling, they probably can’t afford the 250.
The other thing I would say is this. It’s all very well to say that it’s worth the 250 because you get exposure, advice, links etc. but to then say that Skellie deserves to get paid for running it, regardless of the fact that she gets the same as the site being reviewed (apart from the advice, of course), seems a tad contradictory.
At this stage I should point out that the charge is $250, with at least part of it going to Skellie (of Skelliewag) for doing the running. Skellie responded directly to me in the comments with the following:
@ Simon: I have to disagree with your logic. Yes, not every person can afford to pay $250 for something, but that’s what the consultation is worth. It’s like saying: “A ticket to a talk by Seth Godin shouldn’t be $1,000 because not everyone can afford that.†Things are worth what they’re worth — individuals can choose to buy or not. This is a blog about making money online — it seems a strange place to criticize someone for innovating in how that is done.
(I should also point out that I won’t be getting a link back to my blog from the review posts and will be doing a lot of work behind the scenes as well as summarizing and adding to the review. I think it’s unfair to suggest someone shouldn’t be paid when you’re not privy to the terms of the work.)
It’s a fair comment, and I wasn’t suggesting that Skellie shouldn’t get paid. The contradictions were coming from other comments made against the post, not from Skellie and Darren. There were comments saying, essentially, that this “consultancy”is worth $250 because of the links and traffic you will get from Pro Blogger. My point was that if they can assign some sort of intrinsic value to the links, traffic, exposure etc. then Skellie is already indirectly getting paid (although she says there won’t be a link back to her site from the review, her site was linked to on the page publicising the review). Personally, I don’t have a problem with paying Skellie to administer the consultancy, in fact I would expect to get paid if I were doing it. My issue was that some readers gave some intrinsic value to links, traffic etc. when purchased by the site being reviewed, but not for the person running it. It’s probably worth pointing out that Skellie herself, in the post “How to get 1050 subscribers in 3 months” says:
I highlight this figure (1,050 subscribers in 3 months) to show that you don’t need to have big money, the perfect niche or a staff of writers to quickly develop a 1,000+ network of loyal readers. This blog exists within a mature and crowded niche, I’m its sole author and I’ve spent nothing on marketing and promotion.
(not my emphasis)
So clearly, you don’t need to have big money, unless you want the help of ProBlogger, and the ProBlogger community.
I also think it’s morally questionable to charge for a service that will ultimately be performed by the community. This is debatable and I’m not really sure which side of the fence I sit on, but there is a question to be asked, and answered. My biggest problem with this, however, is that by charging many of the blogs who need the most help will miss out. While $250 isn’t a huge amount (especially for those of us currently enjoying the weak dollar) it’s still not cheap. The way most bloggers work, this one included, is that the budget I’m willing to spend is directly proportionate to the amount the blog earns. So if this is true of other bloggers, which I suspect it is, only blogs earning enough to pay for the consultancy will go for it. An analogy I use in another comment is that of schooling. If we charged for education, it would perpetuate the success of successful families. To explain, imagine the situation. Only rich families could send their children to school, only people who have gone to school wil have the level of education necessary to get good jobs, and only those with good jobs could afford to send their kids to school. I doubt Darren’s aim when coming up with the community consulting idea would be to exclude those that need the most help.
Like I said, morally questionable, even on a blog that is, for all intents and purposes dedicated to making money. The second example seems, on the face of it to be far more clear cut.
GameSpot
There are numerous reports around the internet today that one of the senior editors at GameSpot, a leading gaming website owned by C|NET, has been fired. Journalism is a fickle medium, so this may not surprise you. What should shock you is the reason. It appears, at the moment, that Senior Editor Jeff Gerstmann has been fired for giving a negative review to a game that is one of the site’s major sponsors. The game in question is Kane and Lynch, which hasn’t exactly been setting the world on fire (warning, that’s a link to Meta Critic which aggregates review scores. It is, however, another C|NET property, so tread carefully), which is was splashed all over the GameSpot homepage.
The video review Gerstmann gave was especially scathing, but seems in line with the consensus. GameSpot is lucky enough to have a very active and very vociferous community. Strangely, there aren’t any threads in the user forums discussing this. Hmmm, I wonder why. Turns out there are lots of threads at GameSpot and other sites discussing the news.
This episode, if it turns out to be true (the fact the Gerstmann has confirmed he has been fired but not why, combined with the fact that the Kane and Lynch advertisment has been pulled, certainly adds weight), violates the sacred separation between marketing and journalism. In fact, just the suggestion that this has happened has probably irrevocably damaged GameSpot’s image. I think someone needs to remind them, listening to your advertisers is all well and good, but without an audience, no one will want to advertise with you.
Update: ValleyWag has a piece up covering Jeff Gerstmann’s dismissal. It seems as if a commenter on their blog is an insider from GameSpot and points to a change in management leading, eventually to this incident. If this is indeed from an GameSpot insider, there are more worrying things on the horizon for one of the biggest names in the business. Most notably the suggestion that AAA titles should be given more attention, which the commenter seems to suggest means higher review scores. So far comments from C|NET, the parent company, have done little to dampen the fire and this story looks to be heading to more mainstream outlets over the weekend. So expect a backlash.
All this on top of FaceBook’s new policy of tracking everything you do on every website so they can better monetise your pageviews. I can actually feel the blogosphere collapsing under the weight of opinions.
I hadn’t even noticed that it was you who made that particular comment in the ProBlogger Community Consulting post! Yours was one of the comments I agreed with in that thread.
Not because I don’t think it’s worth money (I do, and I also think that a coordinator of such an event deserves to get paid) but because I agree with your point about how it’ll only be the blogs that don’t need as much help that can afford the Consultation.
I’m a brand new blogger. I would love the chance to get tips from a large, intelligent community of bloggers. The chance to get honest critiques from people who know what works and what doesn’t would be amazing, let alone the potential traffic from the Consultation itself. To be honest, I could even see it being worth the $250 in the end.
However, as I said I’m a new blogger. That $250 fee would have to come straight out of my own pocket, and unfortunately I just don’t have that kind of money to spend on a blog. I need that money for groceries and the like, as I’m sure all new and/or struggling bloggers do. There’s no way on earth I could justify spending that kind of cash unless my blog was already doing well enough to make it back for me.
(also, in your second sentence, it sounds like “but” is supposed to be “put”)
I’m glad you agree Caitlin. It seems that some members of the Pro Blogger readership find it impossible to criticize Darren and/or the blog. I’ve no doubt this is because many want to somehow be involved, and get links from it, in the future. You see it with many of the popular blogs about blogging. There seems to be a feeling that if they wanted to, someone like Darren could make or break you as blogger. It’s a shame really, I’m sure Darren hates “yes men” as much as anyone.
Thanks for pointing out the typo. Just goes to prove proof reading isn’t fool proof (especially when your as big a fool as me!).
Simon, thanks for exploring the situation more thoughtfully. I don’t think anyone would disagree that it’s regrettable that some will miss out. However, there have already been enough expressions of interest to fill out the “Community Consultations” for months. If it were free, you can bet that a significant portion of ProBlogger readers would apply — probably in the thousands. There’s no way we could review them all. What does the selection criteria become then? You have even more people missing out.
If there is a significant demand to pay for a valuable service, it wouldn’t make sense for Darren (or anyone) to reject it, particularly considering the topic of the blog. He, like everyone, has a family to support. I also don’t think your argument about this practice not benefiting struggling blogs is flawed. Each community consultation contains a lot of tips struggling bloggers can transfer to their own blogs.
Your key issue with the service seems to be that it will be a paid spot where commenters are reviewing the blog (in addition to myself). I want to point out that commenters get some pretty good benefits:
A link in a busy comment threat (via their name)
Profile in design reviews and consulting, if their contribution is good
The chance to win a (not-insignificant) prize
One thing we might consider is also highlighting the comments of specific commenters (with a link) if they encapsulate pro/con of the design really well.
I also want to point out that the choice to comment or not is an individual one. If you don’t want to be part of the service, you don’t have to be. Judging by the reactions of most, though, I think a lot of people will enjoy the chance to take part. Even if you put a few minutes work into something that helps Darren out, is that so objectionable? He writes content every day for free. I can see you implementing many of his tips on this blog right here.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Skellie. My main problem with this isn’t really the fact that it’s the community doing the majority of “the work”, like I said, I’ve done a similar thing away from blogging myself. Being an enabler of such projects is an art. My main problem is that for all the time I’ve been reading Pro Blogger, it’s always been a level playing field. The tips Darren has written (and you’re right, I’ve followed some of them through right here, and on other blogs) have always been applicable to everyone. There was no “entry charge”. It’s liberating to think that all the readers are treated equally regardless of any success (some of the recent Pro Blogger polls really demonstrate that the readership runs the gamut from brand new through to highly successful). Now that there is an “entry charge”, at least for one aspect of the site, it doesn’t sit right.
As I said earlier, I have absolutely no problem with you being paid to do this difficult job. If it were me, however, I think I would have taken a trusted member of the Pro Blogger community and asked them to run it for free (in exchange they would get exposure, links etc.). That way, there would be no need to charge at all. Of curse, there are some pitfalls in doing it this way, but I’m sure Darren is experienced, and savvy enough to be aware of them and mitigate accordingly. It also would have prevented the (albeit small) doubt some people have regarding this exercise. And I don’t doubt that it will be popular and successful, and those who do have doubts will exercise their ability to chose whether or not to participate or not. On that note, if I feel I can add something to the conversation, I still will. In the same way I hoped Darren wouldn’t show prejudice against those bloggers who don’t have budgets, I wouldn’t want to show prejudice against those that do.
Appreciate your post Simon. I think Skellie’s said most of what I wanted to say. But let me add:
You’re right that the community is doing a lot of the work (I’m not sure it’ll be most of it – last time most of the submissions from readers were 3-4 paragraphs (10 minutes work?) and it took me 4-5 hours to pull it all together.
As we’ve said in the post – the money goes three ways. Partly to Skellie, partly to a prize which will be given to one person who submits a helpful piece of advice and partly (if there’s anything left) to me. So in a sense the community gets something back by having the chance to win a prize. I think they also get something back by seeing a blog get consulting in a public way.
Yep we could have done it for free, but in my mind the money helps us in a number of ways:
– to get it done more professionally (to be able to hire someone of
– give incentive for everyone to participate and give great advice (hopefully there will be more submissions and better thought through ones with the prize as incentive)
– help us filter submissions (last time I asked people to submit themselves for something I had hundreds of submissions)
– gives the blog being reviewed a reason to take it seriously (unfortunately the last blog that we did it for for free seems to have made a few tweaks and then let it die – what a waste!)
I also see it as a learning experience. I’ve never seen a blogger attempt this kind of thing before and see this as an experiment and potentially a new way for bloggers to monetize their blogs (which is after all what my blog is all about).
It’s not a perfect model but it’s a learning experience on many fronts and I’m sure in the months ahead it’ll evolve.
Looking at the quality of those who’ve applied (there is around 30 of them now) there’s a lot of people who don’t mind paying for this and I guess next week we’ll see how many readers are interested in participating.
I do appreciate your comments – they go into the mix of everyone else’s as we review what we’re doing and attempt to find something that is helpful for everyone.