The Lost Road Map of B5
Jeremy, over at B5 is talking about how their servers have been grinding along slowly lately because they are hosting a lot of worthless content. They also seemed to be “quietly” being supported by Cheatika. And yet they are still looking to bring on more bloggers. I stood up for B5’s Darren Rowse one too many times and have been burned by it. No more. Cheatika sucks, and so do the splog networks. Yes, I am standing here calling B5 Media a splog network. Let me clarify. B5 in and of itself has not created anything worthwhile. A few blogs I like in the network were apart of other networks that they merged together. Since all of them starting scheming to join hands in this venture it has smelled just like it looks. Shitika.
Here’s my new roadmap since they lost theirs to fix this mess that it is snowballing into:
1. Shed all the worthless blogs. All the ones that receive 90% or more Google traffic. Trust me they exist.
2. Make Shai Coggins your new talking bobble head. Jeremy Wright doesn’t know how to spin PR and it shows.
3. Quit hiring bloggers and start gaining readers. Not traffic. Readers.
4. Stop secretly endorsing products or start shedding your personal blogs from the network. Yes I am talking to you Darren. And yes you can still continue ignoring me.
5. Stop paying your bloggers and go buy some servers. There will always be bloggers, there will not always be readers once you alienate all of them.
UPDATE:
The biggest thing I am disappointed with at this point is that Duncan didn’t comment on this issue. The one guy over at B5 I really dig and he doesn’t make a mention of it on his highly authoritative site. Makes me wonder. What else isn’t he covering? I mean I truly enjoy a few sites over at B5 I am not a B5 hater. In response to a busy day B5 closes applications.
related:
BlogNetworkWatch2 chimes in. Blog Network Watch 1 Comments
1. We’ve dropped Chitika.
2. Every blog with a reader is a blog worth keeping.
3. Our bloggers are more important than our servers.
Feel free to disagree, I don’t mind.
Jeremy Wright said this on December 6, 2005 3:54 pm
Wow, I bet the B5 guys can feel that new one just opening up….
We’ve had some problems with server stuff in the past, but fortunately for us, we have aligned ourselves with one of the finest web hosting companies on the planet who are providing us with the means to grow without being bootstrapped in the server/hardware department. Big up to Media Temple for that.
Mike Rundle said this on December 6, 2005 3:56 pm
Jeremy, you’ve dropped Chitika, except for the huge banner ad on the top of ProBlogger?
Mike Rundle said this on December 6, 2005 3:57 pm
Good to hear you dropped Chitika, I still see it over at ProBlogger or is he no longer in the network? In fact all I hear is praise for that worthless product over there.
Yes Jeremy I am glad to see that someone reads your blog. I think its you. And if you want to keep your personal diary in the network thats your business. But dont let it slow the server from letting me read BlogHerald. Ditch the splogs including yours.
Bloggers might be more important than servers, but are servers more important than bloggers? It’s the old chicken and the egg argument. Personally I think you need servers, and need readers. You don’t actually need bloggers. Their is plenty of automated blog machines that could put out better quality crap then what drips from the trash can from most your network.
Get a clue. You picked up one of the brightest people in the industry and you keep her locked in a cage. Her name is Shai. Use her she’s pretty bright. She might even save your face on this one.
liberalcowboy said this on December 6, 2005 3:58 pm
1. Darren owns his own blog, he can do whatever he wants with it.
2. BlogHerald is on a different server. Talk to Dunc about slow downs with it if you’d like.
3. Shai does as much or as little as she’d like. It’s her choice.
And don’t worry, my face is fine. A little 9rules / cowboy turding never hurt anyone. Literally.
Jeremy Wright said this on December 6, 2005 4:02 pm
Good to know Jeremy. These were my actual solutions. Let’s see if you guys can handle it any better. I doubt it at the current rate of things. You guys will probably just grow a few more blogs to make us forget all this.
liberalcowboy said this on December 6, 2005 4:11 pm
As I’ve been saying all week, it’s our intent to ride out this wave of growth and then buckle down for 2-3 months and really do things “right”. I’ve never said we did everything right so far, but in many ways the decisions we’ve made have meant we’ve been reacting for far too long.
It’s time to catch our breath, circle the wagons and refocus
Jeremy Wright said this on December 6, 2005 4:16 pm
Ok,I give you that. Let’s just see. I do wish you guys the best of luck either way.
Cowboy said this on December 6, 2005 4:23 pm
[...] Related Links: From B5 The Lost Road Map of b5 Growing Pains for B5 Tags [...]
blogallucan.be » B5 Media Server Problems said this on December 6, 2005 5:09 pm
You’re pretty hard on b5, ya know
Did it ever occur to you they might have already thought of the things you’re suggesting, or that what you’re suggesting might not actually work?
Jesse said this on December 6, 2005 6:37 pm
I know. I am hard on everyone.
Cowboy said this on December 6, 2005 7:25 pm
Building a Network, Can You Handle It?
Today is a good day for learning from others mistakes. Seems b5 media have some problems with keeping their network up. Now as I mentioned the other day when choosing a host you can’t afford downtime, downtime hurts business, in this case for B5 mai…
www.Wadblog.com said this on December 6, 2005 7:34 pm
[...] Jeremy, being a guy working on setting up a network with next to sweet F.A. there is a couple of things that strike me in your comments. First: Clearly you guys are creating a network at a breathtaking pace, but where is the planning behind it? Seems obvious to me that if you have decided to add blogs at a rapid rate, then you better have your server situation sorted BEFORE launching a shit load of blogs to the world? Second: If your host is as good as you say they are over on the cowboy’s blog, then how come they could not have foreseen this problem either? My host knows my plans and I am ready for the traffic it generates if I do my job right, be it today, next week, or 6 months from now. I also made a deal in return for hosting that they get a plug on my network, so I have done it without any $$ spend. Finally: The software. Again if you are planning to be professional at this, it is not an option to be restricted by the software you work with. Get an open source programme, get a good programmer and get it to do what YOU want it to do, this is always the problem with off the shelf stuff, the moment you start to grow it can’t cope, get your own blogging system in place first. I know W.P is only built for single blog use, but it can be altered, otherwise b2evolution is certainly able to be made into what you need. I agree it’s easy for me looking in but it does seem you guys have tried to run before you can walk. Best of luck getting the problems sorted. Dave dave About Me Leave a comment [...]
www.Wadblog.com - My Thoughts On B5 Media said this on December 6, 2005 7:38 pm
My Thoughts On B5 Media
This is the reply i placed on b5media site to the article found here
Jeremy, being a guy working on setting up a network with next to sweet F.A. there is a couple of things that strike me in your comments.
First: Clearly you guys are creating a net…
www.Wadblog.com said this on December 6, 2005 7:39 pm
[...] Jack of All Blogs Blog Network Watch.net WadBlog [...]
Ensight - Jeremy Wright’s Personal Blog » The Irony is Thick said this on December 6, 2005 8:00 pm
I should note, for the record, that our average uptime this month was about 99.5%. Much lower than we wanted, but hardly what some would call “the shit hitting the fan.”
The post was the acknowledgement of an issue, not saying things were about to fall off a cliff
Jeremy Wright said this on December 6, 2005 8:03 pm
That’s cool Jeremy. My site had some bloops to. The other day I couldn’t get it to load right. Then I realized I just punched in the wrong domain name. You could just try blaming all your readers. That works for me sometimes.
It’s like going to buy a magazine from a bookstore and they only have it most of the time. Eventually you give up.
Cowboy said this on December 6, 2005 8:10 pm
Here’s the ultimate key to having a successful blog: it’s not readers, it’s not traffic and it’s not design. It’s the author being a self-absorbed dick head.
It works for me, at least.
Pauly D said this on December 6, 2005 10:01 pm
Hey Cowboy,
you forget I’m in Western Australia +8 GMT so this all happened while I was asleep. My usual moring pattern is to get through the morning general news before getting into deeper stuff in the afternoon, whilst still doing other stuff (like working…) I’ll get there, I promise.
Duncan said this on December 6, 2005 10:19 pm
[...] 6th, 2005 and is filed under Corporate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently notallowed. [...]
» b5media comes under fire The Blog Herald: more blog news more often said this on December 6, 2005 10:32 pm
Hey
just reading the comments, I thought 9rules/ finefools was with Dreamhost?
Duncan said this on December 6, 2005 10:36 pm
9rules is with MediaTemple as they are our hosting partner.
Scrivs said this on December 7, 2005 12:05 am
An uptime of 99.5% is about 3.5 hours of downtime. A new server at ThePlanet can be had for an average of $299. Is b5media not funded with enough capital to buy another server or it’s just living off what it earns from the previous month?
Abe said this on December 7, 2005 1:56 am
Oooh, oooh, the Jackoff calls b5 a network of splog. Wow, I bet they’re quaking in their boots. Like any of us really care what you think…
Andy Merrett said this on December 7, 2005 5:03 am
** ‘I stood up for B5’s Darren Rowse one too many times and have been burned by it.’ – You’ve stood up for me when? And how were you burned?
If you want to talk being burned come chat with me some time mate.
** ‘Stop secretly endorsing products or start shedding your personal blogs from the network. Yes I am talking to you Darren.’ – I’d love to know what in the world you’re talking about. When have I secretly endorsed a product? I’ve been nothing but open and frank – unlike over 50% of the other chitika affiliates out there who’ve written nothing but positive things about something that I’ve said on numerous occassions has ways it can improve.
** ‘And yes you can still continue ignoring me.’ – To be perfectly frank – this blog’s just not my cup of tea. Maybe I’m not intelligent enough to get your satire (is that what you keep hiding behind) but I can’t work out when you’re trying to be funny, when (if) you’re trying to make points, and if you can make up your mind about what you do and don’t like. As far as I can see any time anyone critiques anything you say or hints at being offended you use the excuse of using humor or satire. I’m sorry but I just don’t get it. If you want to be a joker go ahead – but don’t expect me to participate – it’s just not my thing.
David (sorry ‘cowboy’) I can’t work you out (and I think you like that) but you talk to me one way in IM and then I come on here and read you slagging off here about me here in the guise of humor.
I can take a joke – but to be honest the last few days I’ve lost the ability to see the humor in a lot of what people are saying and doing in the name of humor. Maybe I just need a holiday but I’d encourage you to be careful about what you write as while you might write from one perspective others might not always read it that way.
Darren said this on December 7, 2005 5:29 am
[...] The travails of b5media are well documented and are really based on the growing pains of a Web 2.0 startup that’s expanded a little too fast for the capacity it has available. Hey, where have I heard that before? Technorati, Google, BlogPulse … and many more. The b5ers are in good company. If the fate of their capacity-lite colleagues is anything to go by, it’s a badge of success, rather than failure. [...]
SYNTAGMA » Blog Archive » b5media Hits First Trough in the Octave said this on December 7, 2005 6:31 am
[...] Jack of All Blogs takes his pot shot at Jeremy and the b5 way – NOTE: if you don’t like the rough and tumble and gutter language then best to skip this link [...]
Why I Stopped “Watching” Blog Networks : Home Office Voice - Home Business on the Web said this on December 7, 2005 8:30 am
I want cherry pie!
Daniel Nicolas said this on December 7, 2005 5:12 pm
Wait, B5 executives admit they are willing to use pictures of terrorist victims in order to increase ad revenues, but they still can’t pay for enough servers? If they can’t monetize real-life snuff pix, what hope do they have?
And they’re still accepting ads, even though the sites are frequently down I guess it’s time for the headline: B5 admits greed causing outages.
JamesR said this on December 7, 2005 7:48 pm
JamesR
The terrorist thing was a joke, be it in poor taste, and more a reflection on the absurdity of the headline to which I was refering. As for being frequently down I’m not sure what planet you are on because 99.95%+ uptime isn’t frequent in anyones language.
Duncan said this on December 7, 2005 10:29 pm
To be fair, it’s 99.5%, and it’s actually lower than that in the last day or so.
Jeremy Wright said this on December 7, 2005 10:31 pm
The Jack of All Asses strikes again…
yawn
Cary said this on December 8, 2005 2:46 am
I find it more than comical to come here and read all this so-called satire and back-and-forth banter from someone who has no business sense whatsoever, so has no basis for critique. If you look at the arguments, most of them have huge business flaws. You think you are the target market for b5? Get a life, really.
Yeah, I run the Entertainment Channel. And I do so because my degree in Business and in Marketing led me there. I see profit in a target market that really has nothing to do with you. For those bloggers working along side me, they see the growth and promise in what we do. It’s fun, and it’s smart.
As for b5, these guys are working their butts off. Sure, they grew a bit faster than they expected, but kudos to them for letting the ambitions of their bloggers help propel them. As for advertising, what does it matter? Did you stop reading Boing Boing because it had ads? Ha. It’s called a “business model” – ever heard of one?
Yeah, I don’t like getting baited into this comment. But when you are trying to say b5 won’t be successful because you don’t read it, don’t like the ads, and the second server was not in fast enough, you are just kinda missing the point …
Arieanna said this on December 8, 2005 6:14 pm
b5 is mine
shanti said this on February 15, 2006 1:49 pm