ChasNote

ChasNote is ready to plug into your very own news aggregator! I haven’t yet figured out how to post one of those fancy orange buttons on the site, but click here for the ChasNote RSS feed. Or type “http://chasnote.com/wp-rss2.php” into your RSS reader. (Thanks, Andre!)

Zackary Rodgers in ClickZ compares Federated Media (my employer) with Philip Kaplan’s AdBrite — and talks about our common threat, Google.

Battelle’s Federated Media Publishing is sophisticated, services-driven and built for the A-list (to use a dirty word). We’re talking BoingBoing and Om Malik. Very CPM…..

Battelle’s FMP is also about giving control to publishers, but the deals are one-off and the sites are cream of the crop. The list of bloggers he’s working with — whom he calls “authors” — reads like a roll call of the best and brightest in online tech and tech-influenced culture. They include BoingBoing, Waxy.org, Om Malik, and Matt Haughey-run sites Metafilter and PVRblog….

“[Google’s new site-specific ad model is] kind of a mash-up of Pud’s and my idea,” said Battelle, referring to Google’s tests. “I think that’s fine, and I think that keeps us honest, and I look forward to proving that the relationship that we create is more valuable. I don’t take anything they might do lightly, believe me. I’m sure that if their ads perform better for all parties concerned than ours, people will use them. We’ll see.”

At least it was Pud and not Battelle who used the phrase “douche-baggy”!

The buzz on Federated Media (my employer) from Alarm Clock:

“The smart money is that FM Publishing, while late to the blog network party, will make the incumbents squirm with some degree of envy. From the get-go, FM will have better editorial product than Weblogsinc and it will enjoy B2B payouts that Gawker Media cannot land.”

Uh huh!

Well, I should have guessed it would lead to this.

About a year ago I started ChasNote as an excuse to talk to all of you about trends and innovations in online marketing. And, through these conversations, I’ve convinced myself — or maybe it’s your fault! — that I need to move out to the front lines. I am leaving CNET Networks to join John Battelle’s “record label for bloggers,” FM Publishing [updated, FM is now called Federated Media], as VP of sales and market development, starting July 11 [2005]. It’s been a very tough week saying goodbye to the innovators, trend-setters and good friends among whom I’ve worked here at CNET for the past six years. But I’ll tell you what I’ve been telling them — why my heart and soul required me to enlist with Federated Media.

A few thousand, maybe a hundred thousand, of the 10 million bloggers are doing something remarkable. In today’s media-saturated, viewing-multiple-channels-at-once climate, they have grabbed the undivided attention of an audience. For all the talk of “audience engagement” by Big Media, it’s a handful of moonlight publishers who have actually pulled it off. They’ve created intimacy, authority and real live dialog with their readers. While three-fourths of PVR users skip commercials and everyone else has learned to tune them out, certain bloggers have convinced their constituencies to tune in.

Two big challenges remain, though. First, most of these bloggers haven’t figured out how to quit their day-jobs and pay rent at the same time. Second, marketers — who are willing to kick in rent money for the opportunity to participate in this high-energy connection between blog publishers and their audiences — don’t have a scalable mechanism for doing so.

I won’t pretend that I know exactly how these issues will resolve, but I’m signing up — by way of Federated Media — to work on the solution full-time.

The NY Times Mag ran part of my letter in the April 24 issue (registration required).