» Was I the first person on the planet to conceive the whole ‘blog network’ idea? Possibly. ~ The WURK Job & Career News Network.

Was I the first person on the planet to conceive the whole ‘blog network’ idea? Possibly.

By Barry Bell on April 13 2006

Chartreuse pointed me to a post tonight that talked about the principles ofmaking money with your blog.

There are a million posts out there like that, but what caught my eye was the opening paragraph:

Commercial blogging is on the rise. Weblogs Inc. inspired many a person to consider the blogging professional when they were purchased by AOL for $25 million. That’s a lot of clams, and all the other fish in the ocean quickly took notice. Within seconds of this deal, one could hear a sound. It was the sound of one million keyboards clackling away as financially-inspired webmasters registering blog network domain names.

And that kinda reminded me that although the wurk network only really went live(ish) in September 2005, and properly(ish) last month, it’s actually been a work in progress now for more than 2 years.

And maybe longer, in fact, than WeblogsInc and Engadget, which celebrated their second b’day on March 7th.

Want proof? You got it.

My Elance

That screengrab is from my account at Elance.com – an online service that lets you source freelance work, which I used to find a developer to work with me on building the original (and now very defunct) site.

A “job portal with specialised niche sites and blogging”

…was what I originally described the wurk network as to the developer I was working with. (That’s an early technical term for a blog network, by the way. ;o) )

The original idea was to develop a network of sites that were half job board, half blog, and the delivery date for the finished application was the 28th April 2004. Almost *two* years ago.

Give or take 8-10 weeks for the developer to work on the site (optimistic, I know, but c’mon, this *was* 2004) that must have meant I’d started development in January/ February 2004.

Yep, that’s before Engadget and WeblogsInc launched.

But who came first?

Obviously, in 2 years, it’s apparent who had the most money to burn in terms of developing an infrastructure and paying writers, but in terms of having the idea for creating a bona fide ‘network of blogs’, I wonder who was actually first.

Probably not me, I know that much. And I’m not enough of an ass to make a claim like that. But it’s interesting to have seen all of these networks spring up in the last 4-6 months or so since WeblogsInc was bought for $25m.

However, 4-6 months isn’t a great deal of time to build and create a company, and the next 6 months will undoubtedly be the most telling in terms of who survives. And who doesn’t.

And yes, that includes wurk.

But one thing’s for sure: I might only have 7 or 8 months worth of actual physical presence behind me, but in terms of considering the practicalities, implications, positives, and negatives of starting and running a network of weblogs, I have almost a 2 year headstart on nearly everyone else.

Contributor: Barry Bell

I'm a freelance writer and designer with over 10 years’ experience of creating award-winning recruitment and consumer marketing communications, together with a wide range of other creative marketing colateral. ... more »

WURK profile: http://WURK/profile/admin
Contributor website: http://barrybell.com

COMMENTS

By Jeremy Wright
April 14, 2006 12:28 pm

Yeah, we launched, what 7 months ago? But we started talking about b5 and figuring out how to do it a year ago. We’re still new to the game though compared to old timers like you Barry ;-)
By Ankit M
April 14, 2006 12:40 pm

>>I’d started development in January/ February 2004.
If engadget was launched on March 2004, they would have also being doing their development work few months ago.

But anyways you are an old boy of the blog network school :)
By Barry Bell
April 14, 2006 1:11 pm

Heh. Just a fun post more than anything. Man, do I still have a lot to learn, though.

;o))
By raj
April 17, 2006 4:47 pm

Barry, good for you for your realization of originality. When I was an university teaching assistant, I met thousands of students. Many hundreds of them would chat with me and mention their ideas to me. I was constantly surprised to find how many of them were reluctant to ever think that they’d come up with an original idea. (Canadians and Brits in particular are taught to be humble.)

But if you subscribe to the idea of a Universal Mind, and that we are part of a hive mind, then it’s not surprising to learn that some of the greatest technical or medical discoveries were discovered simultaneously by 2 or more people – within days or weeks of each other.

On the other hand, some famous person (can’t remember who) once said that everything in the universe has already been created; our job as inventors and explorers and tinkerers is simply to discover these wonders and refine them.

Case in point, as silly as it is, is that I was “this close” to discovering the Ollie and other now-standard skateboard tricks, when I was 15 and we lived in California for a year. But I quit being inventive after taking several 30 ft face-dives down the 30-degree incline of the street I lived on. After moving back to Canada, in our hometown, there were 3 skaters: me, my brother, and the nephew of a famous Canadian painter. I lost track of the number of jocks that used to chase us “freaks” around the city when they saw us with skateboards. So I stopped.

What am I saying? I’m just babbling in general, but I’m saying to everyone: don’t ever discredit the originality of your own ideas. Because when you do, someone else will “discover” it. That’s the way the Universal Mind works. And if you think you’re close to an original idea, for crying out loud, don’t give up. Remember: 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

hey, why am I feeling all warm and fuzzy …. :)
By Barry Bell
April 17, 2006 6:47 pm

Raj: all true. Thanks for that.

Mind you, I’ve never been able to do a damn ollie. Probably half the reason I surf instead of skate. ;o)