Dear Know More Media Rockstars,
As you (hopefully) know by now, b5media is a huge fan of what you guys have built. A couple of times over the last year we’ve tried to figure out ways to work together and things didn’t quite work out. But we’ve always loved the concept, the content, the bloggers and the team. You guys really, really rock.
Recently, multiple sources have let various people at b5media know that Know More Media is closing soon. Like, this week or next week soon. The idea of bloggers (outside of the normal evaluations that all networks do) being suddenly let go…staff all of a sudden being out of work…and a fantastic network just ceasing to exist…these things sadden me.
In the same way as the BlogNation crisis of last year saddened me. For the BlogNation thing, I worked incredibly hard to find a resolution, but Sam Sethi ended up doing to me what he did to everyone else: renegging on promises.
I am hopeful we can find a better solution for the Know More Media bloggers and team.
Because the very idea of Know More Media closing its doors is so troubling, I would like to make a proposal to the founders, staff and bloggers.
First, to the bloggers – as far as we’ve heard, you have been offered to either keep blogging for free or to buy your domain and blog on your own. b5media would like to buy the blog for you, do all the work and bring you over to the b5media network. We will ask that you blog for $50 for the first month, while we ascertain the value and advertising potential of the blog. After that month, we will likely need to restructure the network (there’s a reason it wasn’t making any money), redo the pay structure and even let some bloggers go. But, if you let us, we will turn the network around and make it profitable. We are fully committed to doing what’s fair (and in many ways, being more than just fair).
For the team (ie: staff), we would like you to let us know what your ideal job is (that is, assuming you want to stay in this industry) and send us a proposal outlining your passions, what you wish you could do, your unique skills and what you feel you’d like to do at b5media (as well as any ideas to improve KMM and b5, because we’re under no illusions that we’re perfect!).
For the founders, we would like to propose that you let us buy the network. b5media is perhaps the only network in the world that can take over all of your blogs with no fuss, no muss and very little pain for the people who matter in all of this: your bloggers, your staff and your dream.
And the end of the day this isn’t about money. This is about doing what’s right for everyone. I know how hard the last year has been for you guys, and I am asking that you allow us to run with your dream. In spite of your best efforts, things didn’t work out (and I know better than most exactly how much effort you’ve put in). But with a little bit of luck, I believe my team can turn this into what you dreamed it could be. Let us carry this baton to the finish line for you.
I recognize that this isn’t the perfect scenario for anyone. But this letter is our way of offering something to all three groups: bloggers, founders and staff. And to do it now. Today. Before any major decisions are finalized, bloggers leave, advertisers walk away, and servers are turned off.
A network dying is an incredibly sad thing. Help us help you save yours.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Wright
CEO, b5media.com
July 25th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
[...] Wright, b5media CEO, has posted an open letter this evening to the staff and bloggers from Know More Media. He opens the letter by saying that [...]
July 26th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Hello Jeremy
I am a little confused. You say “I worked incredibly hard to find a resolution”. What exactly did you do? One phone call and the offer to meet in Paris is all I recollect. So what promise did I renege on?
Please remove the paragraph referring to me and blognation and as for Know More Media, I wish you well. I look forward to your response.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Sam, we actually exchanged half a dozen emails. Including one the day before where you, literally, “guaranteed” you’d be there.
So I spent thousands of dollars and an entire week trying to make a BlogNation fix happen. Only you didn’t show up. After promising not just me, but many of your bloggers, that you’d be there.
No, Sam, I won’t remove the paragraph. It’s the nicest version of the events possible.
To try and save BlogNation I spent thousands of dollars, weeks of time and travelled for more than 30 hours to try and make something happen. I worked hard with you, Tristan, Lee, Oliver and your bloggers. Hell, I even ended up hiring one of them who was about to go bankrupt due directly to you and your lies.
I’ll do that and more for the Know More Media bloggers.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
First, I have to wonder why is is always the people lowest on the totem pole (in this case the bloggers) who are being asked to take a pay cut and take a chance? b5media holds itself out as a professional blogging company. They have been intimately associated with all of these blogs for a year as they mulled a merger of some sort with Know More Media. By now, b5media should know these blogs by heart, and should certainly know how much they are worth and how much they are willing to pay the bloggers of the ones they want to keep.
I therefore see this offer as disingenuous at best. If you have not been evaluating these blogs, and their potential, for the last year what have you been doing? Why don’t you already know the answers to the questions you supposedly have? It seems to me like there is a lot going unsaid here. If you want to make me an offer, based upon everything you already know about the blog I write, and based upon your immense professional experience, I am more than willing to talk to you about it.
If you do know what you are doing, you already know everything you will know in a month. I don’t see any reason to write quality product for b5media two dollars a column because you’re looking for a deal. You have been evaluating my work for a year already. You may now feel free to act on it. If you would like to make me an offer that is not demeaning, I’m willing to have us evaluate each other. If you really know what you are doing, that is what you can and will do.
Michael W. Jones (BestBizWare.com)
July 26th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Michael, great questions.
First and foremost, there are two key questions for all of the KMM blogs: traffic and revenue. We don’t have either datapoint. The KMM crew have traffic per blog, but it isn’t based on JavaScript stats, so are basically useless in terms of figuring out ad impressions per blog.
Now, we could have matched what we understand is the KMM offer: blog for free and hopefully we’ll find something that works. Instead, we’re committing several thousand dollars to paying you guys for the month.
During that month, it’s not like we’ll be sitting on our laurels.
- We need to review your current contracts Evaluate actual sellable traffic.
- Spin up our sales team to sell these blogs quickly to try and recuperate our month 1 investment (sales typically take 3 months so this is a major, and quite sudden, transition).
- Move servers.
- Move all the blogs to WordPress.
- Move all the templates.
- Figure out a new pay system with the KMM bloggers that is both fair and scalable.
- Get new contracts written, negotiated and signed (again, several thousand dollars).
- Work with the existing staff to try and get them moved over ($$$ and time).
And that’s just off the top of my head.
In short, there’s a lot of work to do before we know exactly what the costs of bringing on the KMM network are, nevermind figuring out the revenue potential. By the time all is said and done, it could easily have cost us 30-40K, before we see a dollar of revenue.
Is that disingenious? Maybe, I’m not in a position to judge that. The only other offer I’m aware of is that you guys blog basically for free for an indeterminate period of time… Or that you take over the blogs yourselves, which means 2-3x as much work for less than we’re offering you.
At the end of the day, we want to help. If this offer doesn’t help you, that’s fine. Personally, I don’t know exactly how the KMM crew painted previous b5 relationships, so I don’t know what preconceptions you have. But from Day 1 all we’ve tried to do is help. If folk don’t want that help, that’s fine. But if we didn’t at least offer… well that’d be worse than disingenious, to say the least.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
b5Media is discontinuing a bunch of blogs this month because they’re not performing well. How do we know our KMM blogs won’t receive the same fate in a month or two?
July 26th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
NotKelvon: Our closing of blogs this month was part of our regularly quarterly network review. But the point is a good one: what happens if a blog doesn’t meet our expectations, right?
Here’s my first thoughts:
1. We turn the ownership of the blog over to the blogger.
2. We move the blog to one of our side servers.
3. We give you the time to find a good host for the blog.
4. We move the blog for you and install a template of your choosing.
5. We let our partners know about the change so they can reach out to you guys directly and hopefully generate a bit more cash and traffic than you would on your own. Call it a “friendly send off” (like pushing a boat off the shore).
Hopefully that answers your question.
At the end of the day, we want to help. If the offer above isn’t the best way we can help, then we’re all ears to how we can
July 26th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I’ve been a full-time editor at Know More Media since we launched in 2005. Speaking for the others on the full-time team, let me say that we’ve done all we could to make it a successful business and to treat our authors well. I’ve poured my energy into it from day one and have no regrets about my efforts as a writer, editor, promoter, advertiser and trainer.
I understand that Jeremy is waiting to hear from Hal Halladay, our CEO, about this open letter. I hope whatever communication may come of it will be satisfying to all parties.
I am personally grateful to every person who has worked for Know More Media (KMM) in any capacity. I am happy to say that I have been able to work alongside dozens of fantastic people there – the several on the full-time team and the dozens of wonderful blog writers.
I’m sad, of course, that Know More Media has reached the point that it has as a business – but I am confident that everyone who has contributed to it will find success in their future if they hold to the publishing standards we tried to uphold and teach.
As to why Know More Media hasn’t performed better as a company, I’ll defer to Hal (our CEO) on that. He is my close friend and mentor as well as an excellent boss. He has done far more than most of our writers realize to try to make our network succeed. I do know with absolute certainty that we haven’t failed because of any lack of effort on the part of any employee.
I’m available at 970-372-6630 or myfirstname at knowmoremedia dot com if anyone wants to talk to me. Also twitter.com/easton or contact me via the form on my personal blog consulting site, visionaryblogging.com. I do want to make sure nobody gets misunderstandings about this discussion.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Easton, yeah, you and the team and Hal and Tim have built something fantastic. In no way is this letter meant to diminish that. In fact, it’s meant to honour it.
We believe in this and want to do everything we can to save it
July 26th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
This is sad news indeed. The Know More media folks I dealt with were class acts. Tim and Dan to be specific.
All of you from the in-house team to the bloggers should hold your heads high. You guys were and are pioneers. I don’t know the particulars of why the business is where it is today but I do know that part of it is having a great idea before it’s time.
I am certain you will all be successful in the future.
If there is anything I can do to help any of you please let em know.
sincerely,
Rick Calvert
CEO & Co-founder
BlogWorld & New Media Expo
July 26th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
One more thing to add, Jeremy is a class act as well. I am certain his open letter was meant with the very best intentions. He says what he means and does what he says.
July 27th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
[...] b5media CEO Jeremy Wright’s open letter offer to buy nearly imploded Know More Media. / And his thoughts on the infeasibility of Small-Scale Blog Consolidation. [...]
July 27th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[...] its doors, Canadian blog network B5 Media is looking to buy the more than 100 KMM blogs. In an open letter to KMM, B5 Media CEO Jeremy Wright Friday wrote it isn’t about the [...]
July 27th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about the B5 Proposal.
I’d rather own my own blog for a change and maybe, write for B5 under a different arrangement – or how about you just buy my blog for me – give it to me and I’ll write for one year free – but the domain will be mine, now, either now or in a year and then I can decide what I want to do.
I’m sick and tired of lousy management; they’re finally willing to sell the domain to me and you guys come in and try to act as a spoiler – and for what? Are you going to be any better or fairer than they were?
I admit, B5 can’t mess things up any worse than KMM did – but, as I see it, don’t really offer that much of an incentive for bloggers either. Esp for a blogger like me, who is fairly well established voice in the communities I write to – which are significant and influential – B5 proposal would even more underpay me for what I did than KMM’s well meaning, but misguided management did.
And, as far as revenue per blog – KMM will share that information with you, all you have to do is ask – you don’t need a month and 50 dollars per blogger to access what the revenue is – they have all that information and the sources of each part of the incoming (types of ads) – and gave me information about that pertaining to my blog.
Each blog, according to KMM’s way of accounting is worth between 2400 and 3600 a year income, and that is after the Google Penalty – surely you know this. You don’t need need to shortchange people with a 50 buck token pass to determine the worth. With the penalty off, each blog would have been worth 4-5 times what I just gave you – making a deal for KMM, scraps and all, very good for B5.
But what are you actually offering KMM Bloggers? Scraps – that’s right – scraps.
And why did the deal KMM have with B5 fall through … the one where you guys would host the site. Now your saying you didn’t know anything about KMM’s problems, but how can that be true when you walked away from them recently …. you must have known the lousy finances and surely … you know the revenue potential of each blog …. and if you don’t have it on hand, KMM can easily provide it.
So I don’t really feel that great about the B5 Proposal – it’s too little, too late – and your idea of coming in and waiting for KMM to fail (perhaps that’s what you really wanted) then coming in like vultures to buy up a couple good blogs and dismantle the rest doesn’t feel totally honest or fair to me.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I just want to amend my last statement – if B5 is going to buy our blogs for us – and give it to us (put the domains in our name immediately) plus do a revenue sharing arrangement, based on performance I would be more open to the proposal (that is, if anyone is asking me my opinion).
The key part of the proposal from B5 “…b5media would like to buy the blog for you, do all the work and bring you over to the b5media network. We will ask that you blog for $50 for the first month, while we ascertain the value and advertising potential of the blog. After that month, we will likely need to restructure the network (there’s a reason it wasn’t making any money), redo the pay structure and even let some bloggers go.”
My feeling … buying webmetricsguru.com for me – giving it to me -at the very beginning – with an agreement to write and revenue share for the first year – and then re-negotiate – would be very good outcome for me. Am I reading it correctly that your offering to buy each blog and give it to the blogger … now.
Offering the blog to the blogger right away would go a long way toward building trust and incentive.
As far as worth – as I said before … you know what KMM made on these blogs – what revenue you can get from them, that’s a different story.
As far the which blogs would be worth saving – or buying – my feeling, that’s pretty obvious right now …. there’s really less than a dozen in KMM that are worth saving – the rest are too niche and would need quite a bit of work to build an audience. KMM’s approach may have made sense, had they been able to deliver the audiences – but in many cases, most of the KMM blogs little traffic per day – so I can’t see how B5 is going to magnify that much.
But if your going to buy the whole network – I think you should consider much of the information your trying to find out – already exists – and you don’t need to wait a month to find out. The only exception would be if, by running a blog under B5, it could be much more successful than what KMM was able to drive, given the same content.
I’ve said enough, you can contact me at now dot seo at gmail dot com.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
If you’re one of the KMM bloggers looking for an alternative, forward me your URL to take a look at. I host/monetize my own blogs, I’m very good at it. I’m not looking to steal the show here, I’m just thinking there might be one or two KMM bloggers that could use my help should they decide to claim ownership of their domain. I wouldn’t ask you to trash your layouts w/ irrelevant links (that are killing you in Google) or give up a % of your advertising.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Hey Marshall, thanks for both comments
I don’t want to get into too much of a back and forth, mostly because it isn’t productive to the discussion at hand, but I do want to state a couple of things very clearly… Because several KMM bloggers (publicly and privately) have made very similar claims to yours…
First and foremost: we have, nor have ever had, no *real* data on blog or blogger performance. At one time we received AWStats data, but it was woefully inaccurate (as I’m sure you know from your experience!).
We have never had revenue per blog. We have never had real traffic per blog. And we’ve never had either per blogger. Nevermind historical (to judge growth).
If we *did* have that data, we would never had proposed a 1 month “amnesty” to figure out what the blogs’ potential or worth was. It’d just be a waste of time. And while some might think we were getting real cheap value from that, trust me when I say that the 5K in blogger pay + legals + tech issues + sales issues are more expensive than one month of free blogging
Second, the reason we made the proposal public was very simple: our daily emails, Skype messages and phone calls were going unanswered. Which means it’s pretty hard to “just ask”
That said, as I said at the start, I’m not here to argue. I hear you, and several other KMM bloggers that this isn’t a proposl you think is fair for all parties (some think it is, but that’s besides the point).
So on Monday we’ll issue a new proposal.
Because at the end of the day, you guys (the KMM bloggers) have 3 very simple options:
1. Stick with KMM, blogging for free for an indeterminate period of time.
2. Buy your blog for a hunk of cash and try and recoup that (ie: KMM gets all the cash and you’re stuck with fundamentally the same issues they had).
3. Work with b5 or someone else to try and find some kind of formula where you do less work, get more traffic and make more money than you would on your own.
Oh, and as far as why don’t we just make an offer for the whole network? We did. But at the valuation they’re saying (2400-3600$/blog * 100 blogs… 240-360K)… Well…
Would you buy KMM for a quarter million dollars?
Anyways, we’ll post another option tomorrow. But if the KMM founders want to answer any of our entreaties (public or private) we’re all ears. All we’re trying to do is ensure bloggers don’t get abandoned (like we’ve all seen happen way too often).
End of the day, we just want to help. And we want to do it with as little fuss or muss as possible. Because we have a responsibility to our bloggers as well.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
PJ, thanks for commenting. Any help the bloggers can get is more than fine by me
July 27th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I wonder how many KMM bloggers will abandon their domains and register new ones?
You might lose years of backlinks, but who knows, maybe Google will figure out what is what and transfer authority? Does KMM own all the content too? Or can KMM bloggers upload their old posts somewhere else?
Also, if KMM is asking too much for these domains, maybe wait and see what happens, they might lower the price. What can they possibly do with these domains w/o the authors anyway? Sooner or later most of those domains will be worth less than the registration renewal.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
[...] July 25, b5media CEO Jeremy Wright wrote an open letter to the founders and bloggers of Know More Media offering them of a buy-out or something after [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 2:27 am
The traffic data on each KMM blog, btw, is freely available to anyone by just clicking on the sitemeter icon at the bottom of each blog.
The revenue data was just shared with me for my blog, which is one of the most popular in KMM, at around $250.00 per month. However, most of the KMM blogs probably make far less than this per month, and a few make somewhat more – as they’re using some traffic arbitrage methods, I suspect (aka, some bloggers could buy Asian traffic from Baidu or India for cheaper than what KMM pays for that traffic – not sure about this, just a suspicion.
At the end of the day, most of what B5 wants to know is actually not hard to figure out – much of the data is right in front of them …. unfortunately, for B5, I guess, KMM wasn’t in much of talking mood of late (but…can you blame them … who would want to talk about going out of business and having to sell of their sites in a fire sale).
July 28th, 2008 at 3:30 am
[...] Letter to Know More Media Founders, Team and Bloggersread more | digg story addthis_url = [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I was blogging for KMM by kickstarting Our Bollywood and I second Easton and Marshall. Out of all the networks/companies I have dealt with KMM was the best. It breaks my heart about KMM’s fate however I will never regret working for KMM under the guidance of Dan Smith.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:08 am
[...] Media will be closing its doors as of August 1, according to editor Easton Ellsworth, who confirmed the open letter from b5media’s Jeremy Wright to the KMM bloggers. Still no official announcement on the Know [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 9:27 am
[...] of mine and I learned that another blog network that I (we)write for, Know More Media, will be ceasing operations effective August 1, 2008. While I can’t say that I am too terribly surprised at the turn of events, I am saddened by it as [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
ok slash what I said about Marshall comments. I cant believe he is accusing his fellow bloggers at KMM who were covering the Asian sub continent of buying traffic. FYI, the Asian community online is growing by leaps and bounds. Also there is something known as timely coverage.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
[...] or indecisiveness, you’re not alone. Â Even if you are monetized to the hilt, there’s no guarantee that you’ll turn a profit, even though advertisers are being seen on by your [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I didn’t accuse anyone of anything Tanya – I just said I had suspicions traffic might some of the Asian traffic numbers could have been generated that way …. and I was clear to say I had no proof.
And as far as my traffic numbers, before the Google Penalty, they were generated entirely by my writing – I did nothing with Digg, Reddit, or anything else but simply write – my content generated the traffic I got, which was often quite a bit.
Hope that helps, and please don’t take what I said as an attack or challenge.
Thanks,
Marshall
July 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Well that insinuation itself is pretty offensive especially since you never bothered to express your concerns with the Asian bloggers on KMM . You may have mentioned that you have no proof but do you really need to air your suspicions on another network?
Everyone suffered from the Google Penalty and Reddit, Digg are there for a reason and someone using then doesnt amount to their content being weak.
Anyways I dont want to talk about this issue here.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Tanya, thanks, it’s probably better if that conversation happens in private (if at all, given it’s probably water under the bridge).
Just so you know, we’ll be issuing a new proposal today, and hopefully it honors what you and the other KMM bloggers have built without locking you into anything long term
July 28th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
[...] Friday we publicly reached out the Know More Media bloggers, founders and team with an open letter. We didn’t do this lightly nor did we do it on a whim. After attempting to contact the [...]
July 29th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Hi,
First of all, I don’t think I have ever been called a rock star in my life. Wow. Thanks Jeremy.
Second, I want everyone to know that the silence that Jeremy heard from Hal Halladay and myself as the owners of Know More Media was due to the fact that we have been out of touch. I have been completely off the grid for the past 10 days in a remote part of northeastern Washington with my family, without cell phone or internet access. Hal was volunteering his time (because that is the kind of guy he is) last week at a Scout Camp, so he was out of touch as well. So yesterday was the first day that I knew of Jeremy’s attempts to reach us and the first day that Hal and I had a chance to talk about it.
So we weren’t avoiding Jeremy, I was just not aware he was trying to reach out to us.
Third, we are very appreciative of Jeremy’s continued interest in Know More Media. We have tried to put something together since a year ago February and it just didn’t come together. There are no hard feelings and know that the decisions made on both sides were business decisions, where each party was looking out for what they felt was best. We wish Jeremy and the b5media team big success down the road, which they richly deserve.
Fourth, while we are ceasing to pay our incredible authors as of August 1st and we are saying good-bye to our amazing staff of Dan, Easton, and Kimberly, we don’t see that to be the death of Know More Media. We hope to lower our expenses for a few months, take care of some of our liabilities that Hal and I have been carrying, take care of our search engine ranking issues, and then be able to relaunch the network.
If any of our capable and extremely talented authors or staff want to rejoin the network at that time, we would welcome them back with open arms.
Maybe Hal and I are deluded and maybe we won’t be able to wake Know More Media back from a long slumber, but at this point, we are willing to try.
Fifth, we continue to be open to proposals from Jeremy or from any others. So far the past offers didn’t match up with the value Hal and I see in the network. But we are willing to discuss and divulge any stats needed to evaluate what we have. As our authors will attest, we have always tried to be very transparent with our stats and our business situation.
Sixth, we encourage any author to write for b5media if they want. I know several of our authors already write for them and they have always spoken well of their experience there. If not b5media, I hope all the authors will be able to find other ways to be rewarded for the great content that you create. We regret that we have come to the point to take this step. We have tried to be as honest and straightforward with you as possible and made sure you knew what what decisions were being made and why we were making them.
Seventh, it is our intent to try to keep the network intact while we are taking this “hiatus”. If there are individual cases of authors interested in buying their domain and content, we will negotiate those on an individual basis, but that is not our intent for the network as a whole.
Eighth, we still believe in the model and in the future of niche, targeted fresh quality content written by experts. While we did, as Marshall pointed out, make mistakes, we think we did some things right as well and we hope to be able to continue our vision down the road. It still is amazing that a small little team was able to build a network of experts from around the world, pay them, and get millions to read that content. We are so proud of the quality authors that wrote for us. So many of them are so accomplished and respected in their fields. It always amazed us that they would be willing to be part of what we were doing. We also want to acknowledge the the amazing team of Dan, Easton and Kimberly that supported the authors. It was an honor to associate with these fine individuals.
Thanks again Jeremy for your interest in the welfare of Know More Media. Hopefully, we will rejoin the fray in the future and continue to have further associations.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:36 am
I also would like to let the bloggers know that we are looking to grow our network of business bloggers within our Small business platform. If you have a passion for biz writing, please do contact me to discuss details (we have a re-launch planned for this fall but looking for writers now). I have been a fan of both KMM and b5 and wish all involved the best of luck.
Adam Toren
co-founder
YoungEntrepreneur.com