GrendelKhan_TSU - 12:34 am on Apr 18, 2008 (gmt 0)

youre you saying being a blogger at blogspot will give me a significant more access to new visitors at blogspot than another blogger in a different blog network?

** X vs Y **
er... not sure if I understand your question correctly). but.. I did not say anything as to which network will give someone "significant more access to new visitors". THAT totally depends. One mans blog gold mine is another mans desert. That's why one casts a wide net.

Here is the simple end of the mindset (and reality):
< insert blog platform X > audience IS different than the < insert blog platform Y >.

And cross-over is neglible or simple irrelevant to the point goal.Once you get that concept ingrained the rest falls into place.

As to which of those audiences picks up on your blog more is kinda a moot point. What I am saying is you WILL get a new audience with every new blog service/platform you post at (that you wouldn't otherwise have reached).

** SEARCH vs SNS (social network service) **
Maybe people don't get that Social Network people do NOT use search as primary tools to find new information and friends. They use the tools WITHIN that network. Who searches google to find if a friend is on facebook? +_+

Same is true for a significant amount of people who blog. they don't search for information and go to whatever blog. they just browse through to other blogs within that network on-the-fly.

Of course connecting the two is, thus, better.

This is also why SNS itself is a separate category than search.

** WALLED GARDEN? **

It fractions your community and makes it harder, not easier to connect.

Again, that is the heart of the problem.
This thinking is just incorrect.

To expand on what reprint said, that is based a VERY BIG assumption: that ergophobeBlog.com, ergophobe.blogspot.com, ergophobe.typepad.com and ergophobe.blogger.com are reaching the same people. [u]But they are not.[/u] And its only "harder to connect" you assume that it IS the SAME people (again, ITS NOT!).

In order to "Fractions your community", you saying:
-- A) you've reached your entire possible community already
-- B) convinced them all to go to read from one blog one location (or use RSS to read it if they dont' physically go there).
-- C) and such, if you publish across multiple platforms, you're telling your captive audience to read repetitive content in several places. (or ignore it and waste your time).

THAT makes no sense to me. Even google wishes it could say that.

If one did analytics for your muliple blogs (with repeat content)... I bet one would find less than 5% overlap (that's a guess..but whatever, it would be less than significant.)

Actually, best illustrative example is video streaming sites. Believe it or not...not everyone uses youtube for their video streaming needs. (say it ain't so!) Video producers also tend to publish across multiple networks. Yes, one might get more hits at youtube (MIGHT), but you definitely will reach more (different) people at different video stream sites. There are like 100+ video streaming sites last I looked--top 10 of which all have millions of views a day. Each has a different personality it and yes, lots of repeat content.

*** PERSPECTIVE ***
Sure, WE tend to want to want to believe such consolidatation happens... that we can push all of our audience to come read our blogs at one spot or location--because that'd be easier for us and well... great. But its just wishful thinking.

Take your example:
Mattcuts may be a famous blog around here... but simple truth is: If he published his blog on multiple platforms, he would have more, different viewers. Absolutely.

Heck, Newspapers wouldn't even ALLOW for RSS if that wasn't the case as well (and btw, keep in mind, RSS is a geek tool. Yes, probably like 99% usage around HERE, but... "out there"? say "RSS" to your average netizen and you will get blank stares.)

** TIME ***
Murdoch really summed the argument for your second point as well:

we just don't have the time to keep up with multiple blogs.

Correct.

By publishing duplicate content across multiple platforms:

We would not fracture our audience, we would fracture our time to maintain each audience with 100% attention.

But as he said, that is not necessarily true for other demographics (namely, those with lots more time to do so). I can imagine just not having to login multiple times for their multiple blogs would be worth it for them.

Did that answer the question?

[edited by: GrendelKhan_TSU at 12:45 am (utc) on April 18, 2008]