SMS blogging and community

Ben Silverman writes: Your column brought back some fond and some not-so-fond memories about my own blog.

Back in September 2000, I was working in the dot-com sector and one of my company's partners was a wireless-messaging firm named Upoc. To test Upoc's service, I launched a group called DotcomScoop. The aim was for Upoc users to trade messages over their cellphones (via SMS) about layoffs, financing deals, M&A activity, etc. in the dot-com sector. By December 2000, I had more than 500 people in the group and decided to launch a Web site, DotcomScoop.com, to flesh out the wireless content and extend the brand.

I don't remember if the term "blog" was used back then or not (I'm sure it was, but I never used it). Regardless, I used NewsPro, an early content-management software, to publish the site. I still relied on the wireless group for "scoops," but the Web site gained a lot of traction, and within two months, I had more than 100,000 unique visitors. A few big story breaks turned me into a reporter of sorts and led to a story about me in WSJ.com. In March 2001, I signed on to write a business column under the DotcomScoop brand for The New York Post (as luck would have it, the dot-com I worked for shut down at the end of March 2001).

I spent the next two years "blogging" away, updating the site as many as 10 times a day with news rehashes, original reporting, internal documents, commentary and analysis. When the WorldCom scandal hit in June 2002, I launched a "microblog" devoted solely to the company and the scandal.

At its peak, DotcomScoop attracted more than 1 million unique visitors per month, and racked up more than 5 million page views. Revenue, excluding what the Post paid me, topped out at $12,000. (That was the best month -- on average, the Web site brought in only about $2,000 per month from ads and reader donations.)

By January 2003, I was blown out, though. I had already stopped blogging on a daily basis, moving the site to more of a newsletter and "blogging" only when I had something big. I effectively shuttered the site sometime in 2003, though I continued to write for the Post (with the column simply carrying my name) until last June. At that time, I left to join a small independent investment research/data analytics firm. Not surprisingly, the company I now work for was once an advertiser on my blog.

Looking back at the experience, I had a lot of fun, and a lot of heartache. On one hand, I "reverse-engineered" a media brand from wireless to Web to print to just six months, created a career for myself as a journalist, and now as an analyst. I can't complain about any of this.

By the same token, I spent upwards of 14 hours per day trying to be a blogger-journalist, went into debt doing so, and had enough technical problems to drive anyone nuts. The work was difficult, and I was on my own, writing and reporting negative things about companies without the backing of anyone. (The Post had nothing to do with the actual Web site -- they just contracted me to write a column under the brand.)

Over the past few years, I've launched a couple of blogs, only to watch my interest in them quickly wane due to the amount of work involved. I'm of the opinion that a blog with just a bunch of links to the latest Associated Press or New York Times headline and a line of commentary or two is boring. I like something with some meat, or at least some interesting personality, and when you work full-time writing, it's sometimes difficult to pour your creative energies into more writing, especially when you have to be timely.