Squash is recruiting: The case for multi-person blogs

Back when I was a bit of a “WordPress.com celebrity” a week or so ago, I received an email from Dan Wieringa asking for some advice as to how he could improve the traffic on his blog. It appears he sent the mail to all the bloggers who were running at the top of the WordPress rankings at that time, including Scoble, who blogged about it and sparked all manner of conversation on the topic. The best advice I saw was from B5 Media’s Jeremy Wright and I particularly agree with this key comment: You just swap your real life for a virtual one.

The deeper you get into blogging, the more time it saps. At that point in time, I was in the midst of a blogging tear, where I was posting four or five pieces per day and I got to say, it was all coming very easily. By the time I reached #2 on WordPress.com I was feeling like a Blog God. Then I hit Valentines Day and I faced a choice. Spend the night with my lovely wife or keep rolling the blogging snowball I’d gotten started. I chose the missus (although I did manage to sneak in one post when she wasn’t looking). And you know what? One night out of the action, totally tripped up my run.

Not only did I lose the comment/trackback cycle that I found increased massively when I significantly upped my post count, but the next night I really struggled to get back into it. I posted two pretty reasonable posts, but because I didn’t have the ideas/energy/time to pick back up the blogging pace I’d set a few days earlier, it all just felt really, really flat.

Yesterday, I posted two pieces I thought quality-wise were the equal of anything I’d done before. My Google piece got reasonable traction and sat as the second post on memeorandum for a very short time and is still in the WordPress.com top post list but my overall traffic was still about a third of what it was those few days earlier. Still much, much better than a couple of weeks ago but it kind of sucks to look at your WordPress Blog Stats and see that big slide down to your current traffic levels.

So I seriously considered squashing Squash. I pretty much started Squash as a lark; an experiment from which I hoped to begin to understand what the blogosphere is actually all about and how it’s going to impact media going forward because my day job requires me to really ‘get’ that stuff.

Only problem is I’ve become pretty attached to the little bugger. I think Squash is kinda unique and I’ve really enjoyed writing it and reading the comments and trackbacks (even if I’m generally pretty bad at commenting back) as well as the kind of thinking and analysis it draws out of me. But, as I look ahead, my company has a conference that is going to keep me out of action for at least five days coming up and I just know if I let Squash sleep for that long I’ll find it almost impossible to wake her back up again.

And then I got to thinking. Isn’t it funny how the majority of the Web’s best-trafficked and most successful blogs are all ensemble efforts, calling on the talents of a team of bloggers. Yet, 99.9 per cent of blogs are one-person efforts. And people wonder why they struggle to compete?

So why don’t any smaller bloggers join forces? Get four or five writers, with similiar styles, but preferably slightly different areas of expertise and then all post to the same blog. Comment on each other’s work, thus kicking along the conversation as well as enabling you to brainstorm story and blog ideas.

Other benefits: If you do get your blog to take off, you’ll find it far easier to offload if its a multi-person beast and not tied to the personality and writing of one individual. You can take holidays have not have the blog grind to a halt. If you have people in different time zones or who work during different time windows you can keep the blog ticking over constantly. You can share the expenses if you want to invest in a custom theme, development or hosting. And it gives you much greater scope to try and build community and therefore repeat traffic.

Fark, that all sounds pretty neat if you ask me.

So, I’ve decided that my science experiment that I call Squash will, Blog Gods willing, enter Stage Two – the Ensemble Era. And I’m holding auditions now.

So if you want to jump onto the virtual casting couch then drop me a mail at philipsim at gmail.com. Point me to your blog and let’s see if we fit.

Because I do think the most important requirement to establishing a successful multi-person blog is to use writers with similiar styles and outlooks. I’d ever-so-modestly define Squash as being thoughtful, yet irreverent critical analysis with a healthy helping of personality and satire. If you think you’d like to write similiar gear to the kinds of stories you see hear, drop me a line. If you’re writing good gear but are getting frustrated with the lack of traction your blog is getting, drop me a line. If you’re sick of the time needed to keep a blog growing and developing, drop me a line. If you’re interested in seeing how a blog can form the basis of a community or think you’d get a kick with just generally experimenting with a reasonable-sized blog, drop me a line.

I have no idea where this is going to go. Chances are nobody thinks this is a good idea and it goes nowhere. But just maybe it will take off and start a chain of co-operative ,multi-person blogs that form another layer of the blogosphere.

What I would really like is to give this every chance to work, so I’m going to ask a favour. IF YOU’VE EVER READ A PIECE ON THIS BLOG THAT YOU’VE HAD A CHUCKLE AT, OR THAT YOU’VE FOUND INTERESTING OR USEFUL THEN PLEASE THROW A LINK AT THIS POST. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED TO SEE HOW THIS EXPERIMENT WORKS OUT GIMME A LINK. IF YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON AND WOULD LIKE SOME POSITIVE KARMA, LINK ME. I’d like to throw the net as wide as I possibly can, so at least if this flops, it won’t be for lack of giving it a proper go.

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