Sometimes Your Girlfriend Isn’t Really Dead:The Future Of Blog Networks

True Story.

When I 19 years old I lived with this 29 year old woman in the French Quarter of New Orleans. We lived 2 blocks off of Bourbon street and could always hear the noise, especially on the weekends.

Donna (the woman) used to like to have parties. We would have people come by all the time. A lot of them we wouldn’t even know. They could be a tourist couple we met and Donna would just tell them to stop in whenever they felt like it.

When people would come over a lot of times Donna and I would just go to bed. I have woken up many a nights to find some stranger sleep on our couch.

Well one night Donna and I were sleeping when we were woken up by someone BANGING on our bedroom door. When I answered it it was some guy I just met the night before. He was frantic.

“My girlfriend is dead. I need your help bringing her to the dumpster!”

I don’t know what bothered me more, that there was a dead girl on my livingroom couch or that some stranger wanted me to help him move her to a dumpster. We quickly got into an argument as I wanted to call the police and he argued his side.

It was at that point Donna got up and gave me a lesson in crisis control.

First she told us both to shut the fuck up.(1)

At that point she led us to the couch where she looked at the girl and told us to carry her to the bathroom and put her in the bathtub.(2)

She turned on the shower and started running cold water on the girl. The girl went into convulsions. Because me and the boyfriend were idiots she kept banging her head on the water spigot.(3) Blood was flying from her head.

After a few seconds the girl came to. The first thing she did was complain about the blood on her head.(4)

Donna turned to the boyfriend and said, “Sometimes your girlfriend isn’t really dead.” She then went back to our bedroom (5)while I explained to our guests where the nearest hospital was.

I tell this story because some people seem to think that I think the girlfriend is dead.

That blog networks should be quickly taken and thrown in the internet dumpster.

That’s not true.

I think blogs and blog specific networks will be around a long time. I think some of the owners are creating value for the readers and finding new and creative revenue streams.

• ProBlogging, Erati’s new site will feature not only blogging but other services as well that a problogger would need, i.e. hosting, consulting, etc. I like the idea and where they are going with it.
• b5 are going to be blogging the Winter Olympics. How cool is that. One of the advantages of a blog a that you can get content to an audience faster than almost any other way. Nice to see them taking advantage of that.
• Denton has recently taken on Silicon Valley and will be aiming at Wall Street next. He knows that gossip works in all industries.
• Networks are launching all the time and are becoming more focused.
• Scrivs at Fine Fools realized that small is the new big, and cut the fat off of his network. A wise move.
• Networks like Glam and ifroggy taking blogs to a new level with shopping as a major part of the network.
• Jen and Jake over at Gothamist continue to grow (IMO) the finest of the city-centric networks

I could go on but I think the point has been made. Cool networks are being created and continue to grow. Despite what some folks are saying. The future looks bright.

It seems the girlfriend isn’t really dead.

[side note: Donna’s 5 Step Crisis Management Guide

1. Don’t Panic
2. Quickly access the situation and act. Even if wrong you should do something.
3. Ignore you minions mistakes. In stressful situations they are bound to fuck up. No big deal. Stay focused on the main task.
4. Don’t expect gratitude. Sometimes people and companies don’t even realize how close they came to death.
5. When the major part of the crisis is over give control back to your underlings.]

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