DISQUS

Congrats Gary!

Looking at this somewhat cynically, think about this from an SEO perspective. Who cares who was linking to Skittles.com today? Let's say they change the site tomorrow. The links back will remain and so will the search equity that goes with it. I'm not saying this warrants the effort or not, but I think this is often missed.

Anthony -

Thanks for the shout out. I enjoyed meeting you. Just one point of clarification, FM didn't do any work on the IdeaStorm project by Dell. I pointed to this as a great example of how a marketer can begin to listen to their customers. We do a lot of work with Dell and respect the team tremendously but this is all Bob Pearson and the community team from Dell.

Thanks again! Pete

In general, I agree. Certainly seeing the same kind of corporate altruism in the software space where companies like IBM hire 100s or 1000s of developers that are asked to simply improve the linux kernal and associated open source products. What is good for linux is good for IBM.

I'm not convinced that Google will adhere to the "good for web, good for Google" mantra however. Why do I think this? I see more and more of Google appearing prominently in their organic search results. Is that the best result for the searcher? Or does this practice create a self reinforcing loop where the ease of access creates more referrers which creates more links to their properties, and so on.

Also, it may not be so clear what is good for the web. Who decides? Google decides. In general, I agree with their decisions but I no longer trust them to make the right decisions for the web.

Very good points and thanks for the shout out to Federated Media - we do what we can. There is a critical balance between scale and CPM. 20,000 of the right people can be worth a lot. Almost by definition 20,000,000 people in any category won't be worth as much on a cost per 1000 basis. The trick, 20,000 * a $150 cpm is $30K. 20,000,000 * a $1.50 cpm = the same. I used to manage some really strong niche sites that commanded $150 cpms. The problem? You sold out and it was really difficult to make more inventory. The thing that makes them difficult makes them rare. That is why niche magazine publishing can work well. You add pages and you scale revenue. There isn't an easy analogue online.

Very good points and thanks for the shout out to Federated Media - we do what we can. There is a critical balance between scale and CPM. 20,000 of the right people can be worth a lot. Almost by definition 20,000,000 people in any category won't be worth as much on a cost per 1000 basis. The trick, 20,000 * a $150 cpm is $30K. 20,000,000 * a $1.50 cpm = the same. I used to manage some really strong niche sites that commanded $150 cpms. The problem? You sold out and it was really difficult to make more inventory. The thing that makes them difficult makes them rare. That is why niche magazine publishing can work well. You add pages and you scale revenue. There isn't an easy analogue online.

Great post. WineLibrary is doing amazing things with blogging and social networks. It is attracting a whole new audience to the wine world and driving a ton of commerce.