Something that doesn't seem to gather much discussion along with the success of some of the blog networks is how many writers are going through the turnstyles? What's the overall retention rate of blog network writers? If there is an article or post from any of these blog network owners detailing these figures then please ping or point me to it in the comments.
A long time ago Peter Rojas switched networks. Recently, the Cowboy character, penned by David Krug with his cynical commentary now appears to have gone through the turnstyles of the Fine Fools network. Dave Winer and Richard McManus lashed out about the controversial term 'Web 2.0' but neither seemed to have turned in their membership cards to the Web 2.0 Workgroup (although Winer doesn't have the graphic up on scripting.com, did he ever?). Also recently, b5media lost Mike Elgan from Flightnest and also John Evans who departed to start his own blog network. Here's my questions:
How many writers have come and gone from these blog networks that we haven't gotten to know? How many have burned out of blog network gigs and blogging altogether? And how many have burned out on blogging because of a negative and/or short lived blog network experience? How many moved onto greener pastures?
I don't have these stats, but I'd be curious to see some real numbers. My guess is the retention numbers are unfavorable. For every Peter Rojas, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of blog network writers we barely get to know who don't produce enough or cut themselves loose because of blog network politics.
Jason Calacanis left a revealing comment on a 9rules post in August of last year:
We’ve had major bloggers leave the network over the past year… we thought they would have a huge impact on the traffic and it turns out they didn’t. Are the blogs they worked at doing as good as they would have if they stayed? Maybe, maybe not… depends on how good the person we get to replace is frankly.
I decided to submit this piece to performancing because understanding what the average retention numbers is an important part of setting up any business involving help. Retention is particularly of interest to those who might be thinking of starting their own blog network utilyzing other writers.
Oddly enough the keyword retention returned no results here but I swear this has been touched on before. Chris Garrett delivered a recent piece on Blog Network Payment Strategies that ponders what type of payment best attracts and keeps writers.
We've seen lots of transparency when it comes to traffic numbers, but what about blog network writer retention?
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