The Value Of Blogging

How can you judge the value of an article, a blog, readership? Without getting too deep into the problem, let’s take a moment and think about how you can assess value. I think the problem can be broken down into two distinctive criteria of judgment: subjective and objective opinion. Let’s start off with objective, because things are going to get murky fast in the other camp.

In a sea of good, how do you pick the best?

I would first look at the general look and feel of the blog. Is it logically organised? Are the topics clearly delineated? Is the design eye and user friendly? Does it cater to people that are potential buyers? I would also check for grammar, spelling and clarity of language. Is the content original? Does the blog use a regular posting schedule? Is the reader base stable, or does it spike for just a few of the articles?

I’d like to think that Tux Geek scores well on all points except maybe at the regular post schedule. I personally consider that writing an interesting article is more important than sticking to a rigid schedule.

Is popularity a measure of value? I’ve had articles that had many thousands of pageviews and articles with mere hundreds. The ones that made it to sites like Digg and Reddit aren’t necessarily what I consider to be the best. They aren’t necessarily the most well written either. I wish I could say it’s one way or the other, but I really can’t make up my mind.

As a boutique ad agency, Fusion Ads has to hand pick sites for its closed publishing network. Although small in comparison to other more conventional ad agencies, they feature some great sites like note&point. Chris Bowler, ‘the man behind the curtain’ shares some of his insight into the matter of perceived value:

We receive about ten times as many requests as we could ever accept. The idea of a boutique ad agency means that we simply cannot grow for the sake of growth. We would lose the things that give us our value: quality and relevancy. Add too many sites and suddenly you have to earn a lot more revenue. In order to do that, you have to start accepting advertisers that don’t meet your standards.

And then you are on the slippery slope to where your users/readers view you like all the other advertisers — in a poor light.

A big part of accepting a site is whether or not we’ve heard of it. We can make a much quicker decision if we’re familiar with author (and therefore some of the items you mention in your article: post regularity, quality of writing, subject matter). If we are not familiar with the site, than we take a quick look around.

And to be perfectly honest, we can often disregard a site in 20-30 seconds. If the overall look and feel of the site is not aesthetically pleasing or does not speak “quality”, than it’s safe to say that the overall quality of the body of work is poor. But if the design looks clean and the content looks like it fits with our audience, we’ll dig deeper.

The last thing we look for is sphere of influence. Seeing as our model is more cost-per-influence (stealing this term from the Deck) rather than cost per click, it makes sense that we look for industry leaders. How many twitter followers does this person have? Who are their followers? Are they respected in the design/development community?

If we can answer some of these questions, then the decision is easier.

Overall, because we get such a high volume of requests, the answer is “no, but thanks” 90% of the time. But I tell people this: the best way to get an invitation to be on our network is to produce great work. You’ll get noticed if you focus on that.

— Chris Bowler, Fusion Ads @ 05/01/2010

I can say that the review model is sound from my point of view, and I hope we learn something from it. Ultimately, it’s the reader who measures value. What’s the most important thing for you?

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