Meckler's Media

Alan Meckler bought the small company Jason Chervokas and I owned more than five years ago. In doing so, Alan picked up a must-read e-newsletter, a well-trafficked jobs posting site, and a good subscription list. Jason and I departed a year later, but the site still lives on. It was the right deal at the time for us, and an example of the kind of aggregation that has made Meckler a force online since before the Internet was a commercial medium.

Meckler excels at free media, so it's no surprise that he's now moving aggressively into the blogosphere. Unlike some, Alan doesn't insist on inventing something new; rather, his move is always a split second behind the curve of public acceptance. He is also patient, more comfortable in a down or normal business cycle than in the crazed boomtimes. That's how he swooped in and grabbed the best assets of the once overpriced and arrogant Jupiter analyst business, remaking it as part of his network. This canny business sense has allowed him to basically sell the same company - with himself at the head, of course - several times, including twice to the public markets.

Meckler is a trade publisher. That is to say, he's aiming at a professional audience. But it's a very wide professional audience, and Alan understands that in technology these days, the line between "professional" and "would-be professional" is pretty blurry. Lots of people dabble in code, and it makes for a massive, widespread audience.

This week, Meckler's company launched a blog relating to search engines, partially written by his search guru Danny Sullivan. As John Battelle, who also runs a search-related blog (and who also recruited Chervokas and me to launch the once-infamous Media Grok, a pre-blog) cracked recently after looking at all the ads on the new site: now "there's some monetization."

Meckler told blogger/commentator Steve Rubel that he believes few Weblogs will make money - but he added:

I am not a big fan of the concept as a way to make big income. Blogs associated with network sites like our Jupiterweb, on the other hand, can in fact tangentially generate revenue because the readership is likely to want to find out more about a writer and this in turn can lead to lead generation. We see this with our Jupiter Research division. Several analysts write blogs which are free. Readers of these blogs might be impressed with the opinions expressed by one or more of our analysts -- and this can lead to sales leads.

It's fair to say, that no one knows monetization of free or nearly-free trade content in the technology space better than Alan. Of course, he's also kept some talent around for years like Sullivan and my old colleague Pamela Parker, who has her own terrific blog and understands digital marketing as well as anyone on the planet. Not surprisingly, Meckler is part of a growing cadre in the corporate world: CEOs who blog. Meckler's blog is, by turns, promotional and cranky - he praises friends and punishes enemies. But he's not dull, and at the end of the day, he's monetizing ... all the time.

Comments

[Jon Strande]

I'll never forget the name Alan Meckler, I was a stockbroker went Meckler Media went public. I can still recall the pitch:

"We're not sure who is going to make money on this whole Internet thing; but if you remember back to the gold rush, the people who made money were the people selling the maps and shovels... that is what these guys are doing, they're in the map business for the Internet gold rush."

Mind if I break into a chorus of 'Memories'?

[Tom W.]

Misty, watercolor memories....of monetizing free content.....