What do you think about Pro Blogger Community Consulting?

[Simon Thomas]

I know most of the member of this blog are readers of Pro Blogger, so I was wondering what everyone thinks about the route Darren has gone down with regards to Community Consulting, and specifically, charging for it.

I posted a few comments on the article and was replied to both by Skellie and Darren both on Pro Blogger (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/11/30/problogger-community-...) and on my own blog. (http://www.oakinnovations.co.uk/blog/2007/11/30/how-to-kill-a-commu...)

It looks as if my view is slightly controversial, so I was just wondering what others think? Presumably most of this group are the target audience, so it should be interesting.

[Christine Martell]

Simon,
It has been a fascinating development to me also. I know people who do not pay often do not value, so I have no problem with the concept of charging for reviews. The part I think is strange is the how the money is being allocated. If the community is participating, I think it would have been more community building to put all of that money into the prize.

Not that I don't think Darren and Skellie should be paid....I do. But let's be realistic here, Problogger makes money. I'm sure Skellie's affiliation with Problogger is bringing her significant income also, if not in the short term, certainly over time. Why would they even want to risk getting into these little spats with readers? Over $250? It seems crazy.

I'm also not terribly worried about beginners not being able to afford the review. Darren and Skellie are both really sophisticated in their approach to blogs, and so are many of the readers. The review process is probably most beneficial to those who are further along. Not to mention it wouldn't be very engaging to a wiser community to show a new blog who needed to start with basics.

Maybe we could try it here? We need to do something to restart conversations. Perhaps we could try helping each other in this way?

[Simon Thomas]

I was actually genuinely surprised that there wasn't more of a backlash when Darren announced it. I've put this down to the fact that many bloggers seem to think that upsetting someone like Darren (or the other "A Listers") could break them as bloggers. A shame really, I'm sure Darren would prefer everyone's honest opinion.

I suggested in my reply to Skellie that Darren maybe should have opened it up to the community to run it. I'm sure he could choose a reputable reader who wouldn't mind at all putting in a few hours work on order to get a few links and no doubt a load of exposure and traffic. That way, no one would have to be paid for doing the admin, and Darren wouldn't have to charge. And if Darren is worried about being paid, then I'm sure the extra exposure he would get would increase his earnings enough to compensate.

I'm not sure what you mean about trying it here? Reviewing each other's blogs? Charging ;) ?

[Christine Martell]

Reviewing each others blogs. There have been a lot of related suggestions, so I thought we might try it?

One thing I think would be important however, is for it to be relative to the goals of the blog owner. I would look at a blog of someone who is trying to monetize differently than someone trying to build community or share with their family and friends.

[Simon Thomas]

I think it's a great idea Christine. It might be a good ideal if we post the reviews on our own blogs (if appropriate). Which may benefit us in two ways. Firstly, it's some good content if done correctly and secondly, by posting about it and saying we did it because of this community, it might drive some more people to the community. Do you think it could fit in with the weekly challenges (i.e. review this blog)?

[Christine Martell]

How about we do the review here as a weekly challenge... So challenge of the week would be to review a certain blog. Then the blog owner could write a post about what they learned, and any subsequent changes on their own blog.

Do you want to be first :)?

[Simon Thomas]

I'm actually in the middle of redesigning my blog (and restructuring it, which it turns out isn't easy), so it will be really usefull in a week or so, but not at the moment.

I think making it part of the weekly challenge is definitely the way to go. It's probably worth pointing out that it's really of benefit to everyone, not just the blog being reviewed.

[Christine Martell]

That might be perfect timing. I'd like to see if we can get some conversations happening again before we undertake it. I also want to get Michele on board and figure out how we can best set it up on the admin side.

I bet restructuring isn't easy. I'm still reeling from changing my template, and anticipating how to rethink it to accommodate the tags in 2.3.

I look forward to seeing the redesign. I do think you have been making steady improvement, at least since I've been reading your blog.

[Michele Martin]

I think that this is a great idea. With the holidays coming up, we might have trouble engaging people to start doing the reviews, but we could at least start trying to recruit people and see if they're interesting in having the community review their blogs. We could set up a forum to recruit volunteers and then send out a group message. Does that make sense?

[Simon Thomas]

Tagging is certainly one of the things I'm looking at. I can't decide whether they provide any benefit or not. I've been tagging my posts since 2.3 but not displaying them anywhere. My new theme allows space for tags on posts, or even a tag cloud in the side bar, so I may experiment a bit and track how many times readers interact with them,

The main change I'm making is that the blog has always lived in a blog directory. So Wordpress is installed at www.domain.com/blog/. But now i want to break out and put content at the root of the domain, while getting information from Wordpress. Ironically, a bit like the Pro Blogger structure. I've got it to work, but it seems as if some of the links have gone a bit funny (especially image links). I'm getting there though.

[Michele Martin]

Hmmm. . . Interesting. My first thought is that charging may be a good idea--as Darren said on your blog, it weeds out the people who may be less serious about using the caliber and quality of advice that was coming in. I think it points to an issue I'm curious about, which is how you make money through your blog if you're not into the whole ad revenue thing. Clearly what's happened for Darren is that he's built up attention and a community and now he's looking at how to serve that community in a way that's self-sustaining. The problem seems to be that you could interpret it as him selling the advice of his community, advice that they've given for free. I can also see where you could argue with the price, although I guess this is new territory so you'd have to see what the market would bear. He says that he has 30 bloggers already standing in line wanting the advice, so obviously there are plenty of people willing to pay the $250.

What will be interesting is to see if people actually end up contributing their advice now that money's involved. Will they see that as a problem or not?

[Maya Norton]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for writing about this. Someone this particular Problogger post missed my attention.

Personally I think it is a great idea for Darren. According to a myriad of ranking system, his is definitively and securely at the top of all 'blogging about blogging' lists. He is a professional blogger and one of the most respected ones in the blogosphere both for his opinions, his example, and the community he has established as an authentic authority blogger (what we all hope to be).

Businesswise, it absolutely makes sense for him and Skellie to parter in this way and it serves as a great business model for us. Also, pertaining to your conversation with Christine and Michele below, it encourages us to do the same for each other. While I wouldn't submit my blog to Problogger as it is not ready (for reasons that I have written about in this community) and the financial resources are not available, I would be much more open to be reviewed by people I consider friends in the blogosphere and who I trust as bloggers and professionals for the same reasons I delineated above.

Thanks for this and glad you were able to garner responses on your personal blog as well.

Maya

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