Bivings, Blogs, Media, Newspaper Study
Jan 15, 2007
Todd Zeigler
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BlogBurst Wants to Give Us Money

BlogBurst is a service that makes content from a pre-screened group of blogs available to a network of publishers, including the likes of USA Today and Reuters. We signed The Bivings Report up with BlogBurst right when it launched in May in an effort to get more folks to read our content. Since then we’ve had a few stories picked up by Reuters, which has generated a lot of headline views (around 850,000) and a modest number of post views (around 1,500).

From our perspective, there is no real downside to BlogBurst. That is 1,500 post views we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. The more people that read our stuff the better.

Then today I got an email from BlogBurst saying that during the fourth quarter of 2006 we were their 45th most popular blog based on headline views. They also offered us $100 as a reward, with the option to donate the money to charity (Periwinkle Foundation) or keep the cash for ourselves. After reading up on the Periwinkle Foundation, we chose to donate the money.

Obviously, $100 is nothing for a full quarter of blogging. But seeing as we signed up for BlogBurst for exposure and not money, it is a nice bonus.

Here is a list of our posts that have been picked up by Reuters so far, from most to least in terms of headline views.

  • http://www.cybersoc.com Robin Hamman

    I was initially enthusiastic about blogburst myself but was set straight by a commenter who posted a link to this:

    http://www.medgadget.com/archi.....urs_1.html

    Apparently, blogburst’s terms and conditions amount to a rights grab – here’s an excerpt from the blogburst terms and conditions, as quoted in the post I’ve linked to above:

    … you grant to Pluck and its affiliates a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license to reproduce, distribute, make derivative works of, perform, display, disclose, and otherwise dispose of the Work (and derivative works thereof) for the purposes of (a) modifying the Work without substantially changing its original meaning, and (b) distributing the Work (and derivative works thereof) to Publisher electronic web sites or corresponding printed editions, whether now known or hereafter devised.

  • http://www.cybersoc.com Robin Hamman

    I was initially enthusiastic about blogburst myself but was set straight by a commenter who posted a link to this:

    http://www.medgadget.com/archi.....urs_1.html

    Apparently, blogburst’s terms and conditions amount to a rights grab – here’s an excerpt from the blogburst terms and conditions, as quoted in the post I’ve linked to above:

    … you grant to Pluck and its affiliates a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license to reproduce, distribute, make derivative works of, perform, display, disclose, and otherwise dispose of the Work (and derivative works thereof) for the purposes of (a) modifying the Work without substantially changing its original meaning, and (b) distributing the Work (and derivative works thereof) to Publisher electronic web sites or corresponding printed editions, whether now known or hereafter devised.

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com Todd Zeigler

    Robin,

    Great point. I noticed how onerous their contract is when I signed up. I will take a closer look at it. For us though, the benefit of exposing more people to our content outweighs the copyright concerns. Others will legitimately reach the conclusion to stay far away from BlogBurst given the issues you describe.

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com Todd Zeigler

    Robin,

    Great point. I noticed how onerous their contract is when I signed up. I will take a closer look at it. For us though, the benefit of exposing more people to our content outweighs the copyright concerns. Others will legitimately reach the conclusion to stay far away from BlogBurst given the issues you describe.

  • http://www.micropersuasion.com/2007/01/the_double_stan.html Micro Persuasion

    The Double Standard on Compensation…

    Earlier this week I wrote about how ZDNet is compensating its bloggers based on traffic to their posts. What’s unclear is how long they track the clicks. Even though a particular post may not get a lot of views immediately,…

  • http://www.blogburst.com Eric Newman

    I encourage you to look at the BlogBurst contributor agreement in its current state. We changed it considerably in Q3 to remove a number of the onerous requirements after hearing feedback from a number of bloggers. You can read more about it here

    If you still feel there are issues, please let us know. We are constantly re-evaluating the offering/agreements/etc to make this a successful service for our blogger and publisher partners
    -Eric Newman, Pluck (BlogBurst)

  • http://www.blogburst.com Eric Newman

    I encourage you to look at the BlogBurst contributor agreement in its current state. We changed it considerably in Q3 to remove a number of the onerous requirements after hearing feedback from a number of bloggers. You can read more about it here

    If you still feel there are issues, please let us know. We are constantly re-evaluating the offering/agreements/etc to make this a successful service for our blogger and publisher partners
    -Eric Newman, Pluck (BlogBurst)

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