PR Opinions

As predicted by Rafat Ali back in January, blogs are beginning to get bought.

News has leaked out that MarketingFix a collaborative blog focused on marketing, has been snapped up by Andy Bourland. Andy is the founder of ClickZ.

The MarketingFix blog will be re-packaged with another Bourland purchase, Adventive which hosts marketing related discussions and the combined entity will be launched in July as: Up2Speed.

So what does it mean? Well there was always going to be commercial interest in blogs that are popular with some clearly defined sector. There is a clear challenge for Bourland in how he’s going to wring profitability from the venture, but it’ll be interesting to watch.

I’d expect a small number of other prominent blogs will follow MarketingFix, particularly in the technology area where the publishers (other than Infoworld, CRN and a few others) are struggling with the blog thing - the bloggers will probably become staff members, and for PR this will certainly make reaching them easier.

I wouldn’t expect a huge amount of consolidation however.

There’s nothing to stop companies creating and fostering their own successful blogs without pulling out a check book. It’s simply a matter of application.

But I wish the folks at MarketingFix a lot of luck.