As you may have heard, Blogads is once again repping Wonkette.com. More here, here, and here. The latter link, on the LA Times blog, is particularly good on the nuances of what’s going on.
To answer a question that came up a number of times yesterday: Blogads has zero ownership interest in Wonkette. We’ll be the exclusive ad rep for the blog and our webmaster sister, Pressflex, which hosts sites like TheBanker.com and PerezHilton.com, will serve as its webmaster.
Blogads repped The Wonkette throughout 2004 and 2005 and had a mutually profitable relationship. As Blogads aficionados know, we’re very reluctant right now to accept new blogs in the network; we’re focused on serving our current blogging partners, the bloggers who’ve helped build Blogads, thrive. We’ve committed to represent Wonkette, a blog that’s favorite of DC insiders and boasts a thriving community of commentors, because we believe the addition will add net dollars to the mix of bloggers we already represent.
Like Nick Denton, I think a brisk cold wind is blowing across all media. During the looming depression, times will be particularly tough for new social media companies. Many late arrivals to the field, still flush with cash and pheromone$ injected by VCs eager to hop aboard the Newest New Thing, don’t yet feel the wind or see the snowflakes falling. (As in all gold rushes, a few glimmers of gold dust quickly swelled into golden boulders in the popular imagination, and the greedy and the needy flocked to the promise of gold laden with giant earth movers, leased Porsches and giant Excels stretching into hundred million dollar profitability in 2013.) Now, even as reality turns against the newbies, these folks happily starve or borrow for a while believing they, specially and uniquely, deserve to hit it big. But that willful fantasizing (they patience for now) won’t last forever. We’re beginning to hear rumors that several high valuation VC-funded companies — blog networks, blog publishers, blog whatevers — are almost out of cash, and will need to do down rounds (when early owners find their shares significantly diluted) to raise more cash and stay afloat. More on this in coming weeks. (As Mr. Drudge says “Developing!!!”)
As the social media winter looms, the winners will be the folks with strong relationships, low overheads, a strong commitment on innovation rather than coat-tail riding, and, most of all, a indelible passion for the business. We’re looking forward to seeing you after the bust. Meanwhile, we’ll be mining bronze, silver and some gold with Mr. Denton, Mr. Layne and our many blogging friends.
