The layoffs are already well under way at big media companies including Viacom (NYSE:VIA) and NBCU. But, what about the new media world, all of the blogs which have been created over the last three or four years? Those not owned by large companies (Blogging Stocks is owned by AOL), may simply not make it, even though they have become remarkably popular.

One of the largest blog networks, Gawker, has already said it will need to cut a significant numbers of people. And, it is a profitable company. A lot of independent blogs built up staff and other costs in the anticipation that growing visitors and pageviews would allow them to benefit from increasing advertising revenue. The recession has robbed them of that hope. The blogs backed by venture capitalists may not be able to get more money. Those which never raised money and have never had access to outside capital could be in the most trouble.

Some blogs have been lucky. paidContent was sold to the Guardian group in the UK. Ar's Technical, a tech blog, was sold to Conde Nast. Huffington Post raised $25 million. According to blog measurement site Technorati, Huffington is the top blog in the US. That gives it the advantage of size and branding.

There are several hundred blogs which have become important voices within their fields. Many of those that ramped up expenses in 2006 and 2007 are not going to make it. The revenue they were hoping for is not going to show up.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wall st.com.

The media recession: How many blogs will go under? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The business model of The Huffington Post, the largest and most famous political blogging and opinion site, fell apart completely yesterday. According to Hitwise, Huffington's traffic grew by 21% from October 28 to November 4. It has been rising sharply over the last year as interest in the election picked up speed.

With the election over, Huffington's traffic is certain to drop sharply and all of the reporters and editors it has hired since the beginning of the year may not have much to do.

Traditional wisdom is that old media will have to cut costs to stay alive, but there are some very successful Internet properties that may have to cut more since their natural audiences are leaving them. Political sites may turn to business and lifestyle reporting, but those categories are already crowded.

The Wall Street Journal writes "History, however, indicates that news outlets that benefit significantly from an election suffer about the same amount when it's over, so the Web sites will expand now at their peril."

Looking at Huffington, audience measurement service Compete shows the political website's traffic up 711% for the year ending in September. That number probably got even more impressive last month. In September, Huffington had 5.3 million visitors. In 2008, that figure was never above one million.

With all of the audience that Huffington is almost certain to lose it will also part with most of its advertising. And, with that, the large staff it will not be able to afford.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

What does Huffington do now? Cut costs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The head of CBS (NYSE: CBS) operation CBSNews.com is leaving to become CEO of popular blog Huffington Post. Blogging must have hit the big time.

Huffington is bringing Betsy Morgan on board to run one of the most visited blogs on the internet. Calling itself an online newspaper, the collection of breaking stories and opinion has raised money from Softbank and Greycroft Partners. The company may have brought in as much as $10 million from VCs.

Huffington claims to have 3.5 million unique visitors a month, according to The New York Times. The company has more than 40 employees.

While the news is not earth-shattering by itself, it does highlight a trend as management and editorial talent moves from mainstream media to companies like Huffington, TechCrunch, and GigaOm. Most of these blogs were started by one or two people, but are now companies that reportedly bring in seven figures in revenue each year.

The rise of the blog may also be something of an unpleasant reminder to the newspaper industry that it has not done well with its online businesses and that much smaller news and comment sites have risen from nowhere to take over much of the market. Once again entrepreneurs triumph over big business.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

CBS loses an executive to blogging company originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.