Jeff Jarvis: 'Bloggers Are Becoming Influencers'
The head of Advance.net is so captivated by power of Weblogs that he is launching an Iraq "Warblog" across the news sites affiliated with Advance newspapers.

By Patrick Phillips
I Want Media, 03/13/03

Jeff Jarvis is president and creative director of Advance.net, which oversees the Internet operations for Advance Publications, including CondéNet and Advance Internet. He is a former television critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor of the New York Daily News and columnist with the San Francisco Examiner.

Jarvis, a longtime supporter of Weblogs, or "blogs" -- the online diaries that link to other content -- recently launched a blog focusing on the possible "War In Iraq" for all of the local news sites affiliated with Advance newspapers. Jarvis spoke with I Want Media about how blogs can help traditional media outlets create "a new and powerful relationship" with their audiences.

I Want Media: Is this new "War In Iraq" blog carried on the Web sites affiliated with all Advance newspapers?

Jeff Jarvis: Yes. We created technology that allows us to take content and syndicate it easily and automatically across our sites, changing the brand, navigation and advertising.

IWM: Is this the first time Advance has "syndicated," so to speak, a blog across all of its sites? To your knowledge, are any other newspaper companies doing this?

Jarvis: This is the first time we have syndicated a Weblog and I don't know of any other example (though, of course, as soon as I say that someone will correct me if I'm wrong.)

IWM: How will this blog complement your newspapers' original coverage of the Iraq story?

Jarvis: Our Web sites have great content from the newspapers and from the Associated Press but, as we all know, there is more great material across the world of the Web and a Weblog is the perfect tool for pointing readers to some of it. A good Weblogger reads all this stuff so you don't have to; a good Weblogger points to what's worth your time and tells you why it is; a good Weblogger also makes this more interesting or at least entertaining than just a list of links.

So I hope that I'll be a good Weblogger under that definition and that we'll be able to point our users to more interesting material on this obviously hot topic -- good reporting, provocative opinions, informative graphics and so on. I also hope that we will point not just to newspaper and TV sites around the world but also to Webloggers when they have something worthwhile to add for our readers.

IWM: What are some of the other blogs appearing on Advance newspaper sites?

Jarvis: We have just begun to put up blogs on our sites. We have four at our Masslive site, including one from the editor, one from a local sports radio personality and one from a local comedian. This is just the beginning for us. Our New Jersey service, NJ.com, and our Alabama service, AL.com, will soon have sports blogs for their sports audiences. Our Cleveland site, cleveland.com, is talking to local bloggers about creating something new with us.

IWM: How does adding a blog benefit the Web site of a traditional media company, such as a daily newspaper?

Jarvis: Anything that serves the reader with more information is good for us. Period. We must be the place to start to find out what's happening in your world, and Weblogs are an inexpensive, efficient and very useful means of doing that.

IWM: Could the blogs carried on your newspapers' sites potentially weaken your papers' brands as authoritative original news sources?

Jarvis: No. These Weblogs are separate from the newspaper content and even the newspaper brand, just as our forums and chats are. It's just more content. Readers are very clear, I think, that Weblogs are not the product of a large news-gathering operation with vast editing capabilities; Webloggers are individuals having a content-conversation with readers.

IWM: A recent Reuters story on blogs quotes a blogger who says that Weblogs "restore power to individuals with something to say." Isn't that the antithesis of traditional media?

Jarvis: It's not the antithesis. It's the future. My own rallying cry is that the Internet is the first medium owned by the audience and, yes, that means that this medium gives them a voice. The wise media entity -- newspaper, magazine, radio or TV station -- will use it to listen to that audience, to find out what they care about and what matters to them and what they have to say. This creates a new and powerful relationship with the audience.

IWM: Do any Advance sites offer videoblogging? How does that work?

Jarvis: We have started with vlogging on OregonLive.com. Using inexpensive and easy video tools, the editor of the Oregon service, Kevin Cosgrove, a former broadcast journalist with the BBC and ABC News, is turning out exciting new video. He has produced a report by a college student from the state cheerleading championships and another by his sports editor from the women's basketball championships.

This is just the beginning. A survey released this week said use of video streams has increased more than 50 percent this year. We need to create video content. But note that we are doing it just the way we did with forums -- we are using this tool to empower the audience to create unique and inexpensive video content.

IWM: Are any Advance blogs contributing to "the bottom line"?

Jarvis: Way too soon to tell. With everything we start, we first work hard to get the product right and serve the audience well and if we do and what we create is popular, then advertisers will follow. We also have some very commercial plans for all this.

IWM: Newsweek recently reported that, in a blog-related twist on viral marketing, Dr. Pepper is recruiting "key influence bloggers" to help promote a new beverage. Is such commercialism the next step for blogs?

Jarvis: They went about it the exact wrong way. Rather than creating a Weblog, they should have gone to Webloggers. When they want to advertise on TV, they don't start a Dr. Pepper TV show; when they want to advertise in print, they don't start a paper or a magazine. So why start a blog? Because they confused the tool with the people who use it.

If I were Dr. Pepper, I would have given out samples of the product to bloggers and see what they said. Even if they hated it, some would write about it. Or I'd advertise on blogs -- there can be no cheaper CPM anywhere in media. This works for marketers and also for PR people: Bloggers are becoming influencers. Note how they are getting quoted in newspapers now. So you should deal with a blogger just as you deal with any other media person.

IWM: Alan Meckler, the head of Jupitermedia, recently began his own Weblog, which he claims is the first blog written by a CEO of a media company. Do you see other media CEOs following suit?

Jarvis: Well, I'm president of Advance.net, and I've had a Weblog since September 2001. But never mind that me-firstism. The more the merrier. I salute Meckler not only for having a blog himself but also for having his analysts start blogs. It is a great way for a company -- in this case, a company built on information and expertise -- to gets its message out to its audience.

IWM: Are any of the Newhouses [the family that owns Advance Publications] fans of blogging? Will we someday see a blog from one of them?

Jarvis: My boss, Steve Newhouse, is an avid fan and reader of Weblogs and he has been quite eager and quite supportive of our efforts to get blogs on our sites.

IWM: Why are you such an advocate of blogging?

Jarvis: For the same reason that I so love the Internet as a medium: the audience. On our local sites, we have thrived thanks in great measure to our very robust forums, where the audience gets a chance to share news and views among themselves. Weblogs take that kind of audience content and improve the quality because, first, a Weblog is a product produced by a person who cares about it and, second, because the links among Weblogs make sure that the cream rise to the top.

I have read Weblogs for a few years now -- and I also arranged my company's investment in Pyra [the maker of popular Weblog publishing tool Blogger]. Personally, I started my own Weblog after surviving and reporting on the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11. I couldn't let go of the story and my Weblog let me stay connected to it. But once I started the Weblog, I found that it gave me much more than I gave it; it brought me into a community of terribly smart and generous people whom I now count as friends. I love reading Weblogs; I love writing them; and I am delighted that we can now share Weblogs with our larger audience at Advance Internet.



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