Blogging 2.0 - The Power of the Post

I was reflecting on Fred Wilson's recent post about Blogging 2.0's improvements over the early days of blogging (Blogging 1.0):

The first is the notion of the post as the central piece of content. About.com had some of this in its DNA, but Geocities and Tripod did not. Posts drive freshness, frequency, and syndication and make Blogging 2.0 much more exciting than Bloggin 1.0 was.

The second is related to the first. Permalinks have changed the game fundamentally. Linking to content was not really possible until permalinks came along. Now each piece of content is a persistent object that has a unique identifier. This is a huge deal and this concept did not exist in Blogging 1.0.

The third is RSS. Blogging 1.0 was a web experience. Blogging 2.0 is a everywhere experience. Content was a solid in Blogging 1.0 and its a fluid in Blogging 2.0.

The fourth is CPC and contextual ad networks. In Blogging 1.0, the only way to monetize the business was with banners. And brand advertisers were not thrilled with paying high CPMs to advertise on "amateur content". With the arrival of CPC and contextual ad networks, this is no longer the case. Wherever advertisers can get clicks, they'll place their ads. The result is a huge increase in the potential revenues.

My partners and I were noting the same things when we started Zoundry. The concept of a post as a reusable content object is key for us and our users. For example, let's say you write a product review with an affiliate link so people can click through and buy the product. You publish it to your blog. In Blogging 1.0, that would be it - you would then have to get people to come to your blog and read your review. This works fine for people writing for only friends and family, but it's not so good if you want a wider audience.

In Blogging 2.0, you can create an RSS feed to your blog so now your readers don't have to come to you. Instead they can subscribe to your feed and read your reviews in their newsreader or at web service like My Yahoo! or Bloglines. This provides convenience and more regular reading, but not necessarily more readers.

The more interesting development is in syndication where your reviews exist independently from your blog. Services like Technorati can aggregate your product reviews with other product reviews and widen your audience. As I mentioned before, this doesn't guarantee you more revenue from your product links. But it's a good start, and more people can benefit from your product knowledge.

The important thing is that you give readers an opportunity to transact within your post instead of relying on them to go back to your blog and click on Google ads or whatever else you're using to make money.

We have some interesting things in the works around this idea - stay tuned. In the meantime, use our posting editor, the Zoundry Blog Writer (free download), to create an inventory of reviews of books, music, DVDs, electronics, baby gear, and other products that you've researched, purchased, and enjoyed. Remember that each review can exist as its own object, so format it appropriately, write disclosures if you want about your affiliate product links, and include pictures!