Eric Eldon, VentureBeat, and the Blogging World

The news that Eric Eldon shared about VentureBeat.com and the world of blogging was quite interesting.

VentureBeat.com is a website that blogs about technology. It was founded by Mike Marshall, who hired Eldon as his first writer.

Eldon often writes about Facebook and Myspace because they come out with a lot of great innovations. He tends to cover Myspace more because "they have been more aggressive" in getting new things out there. Myspace has come out with the music playlists that Facebook doesn't have, and Eldon says that Myspace has even been talking about making applications for phone devices that allow you to listen to music on your cellular phone.

He also covers Twitter, other smaller set-ups, and bigger companies, such as Google and Yahoo!.

The writers of VentureBeat.com write original stories.

"When there is a story that someone else writes, we call up the actual company or source of that story to get information, and try to push that forward," says Eldon.

One could say that "Push it forward!" has become a motto for VentureBeat.com because the writers encourage readers to comment their work to keep the conversation going. Eldon says that he will first post something, and then, people will comment. If they make a good point, he will engage with them again and continue with the discussion. Sometimes, he writes a follow-up story that wasn't initially planned.

I think the way that VentureBeat.com makes money is really neat. They charge advertisers some sort of rate, and the advertisers advertise the website and give them a cut. VentureBeat.com also makes money by hosting real-life conferences. The conferences allow them to do many things, including charging for tickets, drinks, advertising, and then using the blog to advertise the conference. The way Eldon spoke about made it sound so easy that any dedicated blogger could do it. However, I am sure that is a lot more complex, and a lot more hard work goes into it than that. Eldon says that it takes years to build up the knowledge and writing, and business skills to be able to build your own organization.

I thought it was quite fascinating when Eldon said, "It's not necessarily valuable to have more readers reading your blog." I always figured that that's what all bloggers want-- a lot of readers. Well, Eldon says that it's better to reconstruct your advertisers to get the audience you want.

"You want to have a narrow audience so you know who your audience is," Eldon says.

I like the layout of VentureBeat's website. I think it looks really professional with the separate sections for Digital Media, CleanTech, and Mobile/Comm. I also like the way the site offers various links to other sites and sources.

I thought it was funny when Eldon said, "I think it's insane that newspapers don't link to other sites. They're just too self-important, I guess."

I agree with him. I think links are a great tool that helps motivate readers to read and trust your writing.

Eldon was extremely helpful in making me understand the blogging world more. His presentation gave me inspiration to make the most of my blog, and left me with a sense of hope. Maybe one day I'll have a successful blog that makes money too.

The photo above is provided by Eric Eldon at http://venturebeat.com/author/eric-eldon/
The video above is provided by CrunchBase.com at http://www.crunchbase.com/company/venturebeat