I have been an avid trekker throughout my college years. Those days, I used to go trekking in Himalayas every month. I was usually short of money. All my treks were on shoestring budgets. I was planning one of the treks in Himachal from a long time. We were a group of three friends and we had a total budget of around $250. We did a beautiful trek, called the Fairy Tale Trek. It reaches an altitude of 4830m (16060ft). On returning home, our friends treated us like heroes, and everyone was surprised and shocked to see we did it in such a small amount.



Another group of our classmates planned the same trek, and went with the same budget. Not only they spend way beyond their budget but had to rush back with just one day trekking. They failed because they did not properly plan the trek. We did during the Monsoons (when we have heavy rainfall), which is an off-season, and hence got a guide and hotel at rock bottom prices. The trek lies in the ‘rain shadow’ region of Himalayas. The heavy monsoon showers did not affect us. We had already arranged for trekking equipment at home. These few things helped us to do a wonderful trek in shoestring budget.



Now let us talk about Blog Networks. Last year, Blog networks were the in-thing. If you believed the online word, all the action was happening in the blog networks. Blog Networks seems like a sure shot deal for anyone with a shoestring budget who wanted to create a successful media brand online. The tried & tested formula of launching a gadget blog, a gaming blog, add a celebrity gossip and churns out hundreds of posts daily to get millions of page views daily seemed within reach to many Blog Network owners. Then, 2005 changed to 2006 and during the whole of January, I must have read a hundred obits on Blog Networks.



What happened?



What happened was that everyone wanted to be the next Gawker or WeblogsInc. Now, I have nothing against Jason and Denton. However, one of the main reasons for their success can be attributed to the plain fact they were first one out there rather than anything else. These people were the innovators and the market has rewarded them handsomely. Blog Networks erred on the planning side. WeblogsInc is nothing but Engadget (gadgets) and Joystiq (gaming). Gawker is nothing but gossip. These topics had a readymade audience online. Tell me, how many other great stories from Blog Networks are there in the del.icio.us database?



What should we do?

We should not copy the established Blog Networks’ business model. Make your own model. Quality should be the bedrock of this new model. IMHO quality is as simple as coming up with a great story everyday. Two, keep your costs down. Three, try out newer things. Take the example of Metroblogging. It has recently launched a new blog on fictional city of Azeroth. World of Warcraft fans know what this city means to them. This was a brave and a cool move on their part. Four, empower your audience. Let them play an active role in growth of your network. Let them participate more freely, and not just leaving comments on the posts.



The Instablogs Network is quietly adopting all these best practices and I promise interesting changes in the way we work around here and how we deal with news.