Is MyBlogLog Losing Its Buzz?

Don't get me wrong, I really dig MyBlogLog, the simple and stripped down social networking tool for bloggers with the killer app widget that lets you see and interact with the readers who visit your site.

But I'm wondering if the buzz is wearing off. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the activity level on the site has subsided considerably since the admittedly recent days when blogger-fueled hype was high and the announcement of MBL's acquisition by Yahoo! was making the rounds.

Certainly for several months it seemed as though there was a lot of activity on the site itself. I received friend requests frequently for example (see my profile here without doing much to earn the honor, and it was easy to tell just by clicking around that many people were discovering and making use of the site's features. I'm not getting that sense of late. My activity level on the site is about the same, but the number of friend requests and messages has dropped considerably.

Perhaps even more telling is that I haven't read anything about MyBlogLog in a while (this Technorati chart is a bit inconclusive, I must admit). Could it be that the early adopter crowd has incorporated MBL into ho hum everyday online life and moved on? I'm guilty myself, having caught the Twitter wave and am very much fixating on that particular e-vortex as the latest-greatest thing.

While Alexa rankings must be taken with a grain of salt, it shows that MBL traffic has leveled off. It's still ahead of Twitter, though it's close now!

I still appreciate and love MyBlogLog's best feature: I get to see the faces (or avatars, or artistic representations) of some of the people who stop by my site.

I'd love to see what other people think: what's the deal with MyBlogLog these days?

If You're Trying to Make $50 Million, Online Media is a Rough Biz

Making lots of money – particularly $50 million – is a difficult thing to do with an advertising-supported online business, The New York Times tells us today. Apparently, you need to get lots and lots of people to come visit your site all the time.

This is (very) old news for anyone who has made a serious go at monetizing online visitors through some sort of website, whether it be a blog or online magazine or fancy-fandangled web 2.0 media operation.

Just as thousands people start a novel and never finish it each year, thousands of people (probably) start blogs every day without reaching that final goal of filthy riches and e-caviar dreams. And just as a tiny percent of aspiring novelists ever complete a polished final draft, an even tinier percent actually go onto have it published by a sizeable press and make significant return on all the time and sweat that was poured in.

The same is true of bloggers and website publishers. Quite simply and brutally, it's just that hard. There's a bit of a heated discussion today between Tony Hung and Jason Calacanis, two of my favorite online folk, over on Tony's Deep Jive Interests. Part of the argument is over the notion of "A List bloggers" versus "blue collar bloggers": whether the two groups actually exist, and what the latter group can and should do if they want to make the esteemed ranks of the former.

Trying to find some common ground between the two sides (I know, to be a well known blogger you're supposed to be provocative, but I usually trend toward a consensus and Big Picture take on things) in saying that one thing that everyone can agree upon, if you want to be a successful blogger, is that "hard work, hustling, great ideas, consistency, original reporting etc." is key, "AND there are some natural advantages that some current A Listers used and use to their advantage, and there’s nothing wrong with that."

Obviously, most people and even most website publishers aren't seriously trying to grab $50 million in yearly revenue. People are online for many different reasons, with different goals and aspirations. Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 is disturbed by the fact that the current online advertising marketplace is such that only the top online media properties, such as CNN and Yahoo, are able to charge premium prices (akin to other forms of media) for premium ad space.

Probably a big factor will come when advertising reaches a tipping point and budgets are increased online as competition increases for valuable and targeted space. Even then, it's likely that only the best and brightest and the most cunning will make big money online, with the rest content to pick up a few bits from Adsense every now and again.