How SiliconBeat got away
Every once in a while (see here and here), someone will comment on how the Mercury News let its most popular blog, SiliconBeat, slip away. SiliconBeat was a popular and well-respected technology and venture capital blog that colleague Matt Marshall and I founded in 2004. We published it, day-in and day-out for about two years, until Matt left the Merc and launched a very similar VentureBeat blog. SiliconBeat’s archives live on, but the blog is defunct.
There is a long story about how SiliconBeat died. No one wants to hear that, I’m sure. The short story is this: Matt passionately wanted to become an entrepreneur and start his own news web site. He was set on leaving the Merc. And the Mercury News and Knight Ridder, then the Merc’c parent company, couldn’t think creatively about how to take a stake in that venture and keep SiliconBeat in the family.
We tried. Matt and I met with Knight Ridder and Merc executives many times over the course of a year to try to convince them to invest in a new, bigger and better SiliconBeat. We had a detailed business plan. We had revenue-sharing ideas. The works. But Knight Ridder was in the midst of imploding, and couldn’t make a move. And the Merc…well, investing in a start-up just wasn’t a concept that publisher George Riggs could wrap his mind around.
It’s too bad for the Merc. SiliconBeat is still a top-10 blog for the Merc just from Google searches alone. It could have been so much more. Instead, the credibility that we built in the Silicon Valley start-up community largely went out the door with Matt when he launched VentureBeat, in my view.
But I’m also not surprised it worked out this way. Blogging is often a second full-time job for newspaper reporters (it often felt that way for Matt and me), but rarely do they get paid extra or otherwise compensated when their workload doubles overnight, or when they cultivate a new niche audience for their employers. The temptation to strike out on your own and go independent is strong, particularly when companies such as Federated Media are standing in the wings waiting to help. There’s money out there, if you’re smart and lucky.
I’m quite sure we’ll see other high-profile, popular newspaper bloggers go independent, taking their audiences with them. I have no inside knowledge about what’s happening with TV writer/blogger Tim Goodman at the San Francisco Chronicle. But I find it interesting that in his most recent post on SFGate, he says he going on vacation, but that he’ll be blogging on his new, personal TV blog. “I’m working out what role The Bastard Machine will play for me in the future,” he says cryptically. His new blog, meanwhile, is humming along, with many comments per post.
What’s a newspaper to do when a blogger gets too big for his britches? I don’t have all the answers, but acknowledging that he might need new pants is probably a good place to start.
16 Dec 2007 Michael
I’m having a hard time finding anything nice to say about how the Merc played this hand, but of course it’s satisfying to know that you and Matt made the right pitch and tried to bring the paper along with a good plan to go independent.
Without touching the third rail of “do we get paid to blog?” I will say this: When a reporter on a beat moves on to another job, we don’t just say “Oh well, I guess we’ll stop reporting on that.” We replace the reporter and keep going.
A smart news organization shouldn’t look at a blog or a podcast or a vlog or anything as one journalist’s property — these are beats, and products, and relationships with the community. The next person in the chair has to pick up the address book and move on.
Then again, I haven’t watched Rocketboom since Amanda left.
Except in many cases, the best blogs are very much a reflection of the individual. To use Tim Goodman again as an example, his Chroncle blog is 100 percent his personality and wit and humor and taste. Sure, the Chron could replace him if he left (and again, I’m not suggesting he will). But it might not be easy.
Ownership issues prevented the Merc from keeping the SiliconBeat blog going after Matt left. But they could have, and should have, continued to have *some* sort of tech blog that tapped into the vibrant start-up culture in the valley. The reason they didn’t is complicated. But contrary to what you said above, the Merc did basically stop reporting on venture capital for a time.
Nice post, Mr. Grunt.
I would love to see the ‘business plan’ for the more robust blog that was used in attempts to engage with the newspaper company. Sure, it didn’t bear fruit — but — it could be a good framework for others, as well as additional discussions.
Care to share?
Mark - at - Rauterkus - dot - com.
Frankly, my spin comes from a different perspective. Rather than journalist morphing into stronger bloggers, I think that there is a place for bloggers to be forge better relationships with the media company (daily newspapers).
It would be inappropriate for me to share any of the business plan info, especially given that Matt has launched VentureBeat.
What is a newspaper to do? Give the writer a raise.
Of course, that would be the smart thing to do…
But in all seriousness, I really think without the newspaper, some of the blogs mentioned here wouldn’t have any of their readers. So while it is great for a writer to go out and make their own blog, I just have to question how many advertisers would be willing to give them money to support the blog (since that is the primary mode of revenue.)
I know they do it, but those blogs that really cash in or so few and far between. As a writer for a newspaper, and with blogs, I have to tell you, the break isn’t as easy as it looks.
[...] Dean Takahashi left for VentureBeat, which started as SiliconBeat at the Merc before Matt Marshall took the concept on the road. [...]