Funny how we, the media, have forgotten the enjoyment factor

And so the likes of Mashable and Perez Hilton have become global brands while in South Africa we have a clutch of very interesting independent outfits such as Branko Brkic's The Daily Maverick, Duncan McLeod's TechCentral, Alec Hogg's Moneyweb, Matthew Buckland's Memeburn, and this website, Bizcommunity.com, that all hold their own against the big boys such as Media24 and IOL in the online environment.

That savvy one-man bandits can achieve this is the stuff of fairy tales and those that were ahead of the curve such as Moneyweb (founded in 1997) and Bizcommunity (founded in 1999 by André Rademan and Ken van Ginkel) are now thoroughly viable businesses that punch way above their weights in the SA media landscape.

Not actually that easy

Now here's the cautionary bit so pay attention: It's not actually that easy.

First up, the skills barrier is high - creating and presenting good content is as labour-intensive online as it is in print and it takes most people many years toiling away in a conventional newsroom to gather the experience to do so.

Next, even if you know how to make copy sing and you can keep your costs down by working from a hoekie at home, the technology barrier is enormous. As a lone blogger myself, I can tell you right off that, unless you were once a ZX Spectrum geek, you will need the help of a buddy who can hack code, wrestle with plugins and explain SEO in simple language - even if you're using the user-friendly free blogging platform WordPress.

Then, I have also discovered somewhat unhappily:

1. The exhilaration of being a lone ranger wears off round about six to eight months and fatigue sets in - feeding that beast can become tiresome.
   
2. The web is absolutely unforgiving: the deadline is now, all the time. Take a week or two off and your users will desert you in droves.
   
3. You can market your website for free through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter - but there is a finesse to this. The punters out these will "unfriend" you in a heartbeat if they suspect you are not there to interact meaningfully but just to sell yourself.
   
4. It is nigh impossible to make money unless you are very targeted, but even so it's not easy to collect sufficient demographic information and selling advertising or sponsorship is a skill in itself.
   

Why do people do it?

So why do people do it? Well, it's a heap of fun to have an outlet for one's own ramblings. There is no need to temper one's natural writing voice and if you annoy anyone, you tell them: "Speak to my publisher." Often, lone-ranger blogs and websites become marketing vehicles and the money is made elsewhere.

So I'm amazed and heartened when I see quality independent outfits such as The Daily Maverick, which was started only seven months ago on a shoestring, move steadily up the Nielsen Online charts. In April it netted 66 643 unique users, which is none to shabby for a seven-month old operation, and 277 140 page impressions.

I've been hoping it will succeed and have become a daily visitor to this off-beam site with its sassy attitude, intelligent analysis and peculiar design. But, at the back of the mind, I must admit I have been expecting it to fail. It's not niche news. The Reuters pics and its good writers must come at a pretty penny and so, excuse my pessimism, I gave it a year.

This week I decided it was high time I phoned up The Daily Maverick publisher, Brkic (who toils away editing and writing copy with a handful of full-time staff members) to find out how the site was doing.

Expects to break even

Much to my surprise, he told me he expects The Daily Maverick to break even by the end of year. He was unashamed about the fact that his advertising rates are "very expensive" and said that, as far as he was concerned, most of the "ads" you see on web sites - blinking at you irritatingly - are, in fact, classifieds.

I must say the only time in the past year I can say I have clicked on an online ad was on The Daily Maverick - on a large and beautiful advert for Karoo coffee table books published by a duo of journalists. Generally speaking, I have near-complete banner blindness.

For Brkic - a Serbian who came to SA in the early '90s and joined ITWeb before striking out on his own to publish Maverick magazine, which was closed in 2008 - the only worthwhile online adverts are ones users can enjoy - much as one does with the big beautiful adverts you get in glossy magazines.

The word "enjoy" comes up quite a bit with Brkic and, in fact, what he's doing with The Daily Maverick is quite unique in South Africa. It aspires to be a kind of online Vanity Fair - a good-looking meaningful read - and it really has no competition here as it's not a breaking-news site such as Media24 while its analysis is not confined to a narrow area such as tech or politics. It's also not dry like most analysis sites but spunky and opinionated like a personal blog.

Clearly, I err

Clearly, I err in surmising advertising is a hard sell if you're not niche. Frankly, I'm delighted to discover I'm wrong. Brkic hints that a couple new revenue streams are in the offing for The Daily Maverick but is firmly against paywalls as he doesn't think they are viable unless your content is truly unique.

He arrived at these views and The Daily Maverick concept, he says, by rethinking online from scratch - going "back to 1992". Many online operations chased that elusive payment model with gizmos and offensive advertising, he says.

"We cheapened ourselves... The only people who are making money are the technology people."

Brkic doesn't have all the answers. He describes the future on online news as "murky" but says he believes building meaningful relationships with users is what counts.

"What do we enjoy?"

"What do we enjoy in print?" he asks. "Why do we forget about enjoyment online? I want people who read stuff online to feels as good about it as they do reading a magazine. It should be about great pictures, big ads and high-quality editorial. It's very simple. There's not much high-end market speak there."

Quite right. Funny how we've forgotten that.