Michael Kanellos, the skeptical dude in the 60 Minutes piece and the editor-in-chief of Greentechmedia, pointed his pocket camera at K.R. Sridar and asked all the questions 60 Minutes should have. Science journalism!
Here's my existential question: Energy is how we move and stay warm. Nothing is more important than fuel. We have fought wars over fuel, and will continue to do so. Considering the ENORMITY of the fossil fuel conundrum this planet faces, how is this video not front page news? This is a man, backed by $400 million from the most famous VC firm in Silicon Valley, claiming he just invented the holy grail. Why don't we care?
This is a huge deal, and not just for technology junkies and aspiring energy reporters.
Notable moments:
"We knew what we were after. We were after the holy grail. And if we didn't get that we didn't care." --Sridar
Kanellos: "I heard you had backlog of a billion dollars in orders."
Sridar: "Uh, no comment on that."
Showing posts with label Green Blogosphere. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Blogosphere. Show all posts
2.18.2010
Q&A With Shea Gunther
I caught up with eco-blogger and entrepreneur Shea Gunther, who currently blogs for Mother Nature Network, and he was generous enough to share his insights on the state of the green blogging ecosystem. He was also gracious enough to give props to good reporting, which I personally found encouraging. Gunther is a proven online-business starter, and professional blogger -- he knows what's up with the green web. Check it.
Q: What drives you as a blogger?
Shea Gunther: I like sharing things that I find. Pretty much for as long as I've consumed media I've been the guy sending off an email to someone saying, "Hey, I thought you might like this." I started blogging before it was called blogging, back in 2001 or 2002. You can actually go to Archive.org and search sheagunther.org and you can still see some of the posts-- random thoughts and links and whatnot. Blogging just suits the way that I'm wired, and the fact that I've been able to find a way to make a living blogging is miraculous. Being a blogger is awesome.
Q: What are you working on right now?
SG: I write for Mother Nature Network, two posts a day, Monday through Friday. And about month ago I started working with a company that's kind of like a green Costco. There will be an online club, and you'll be able to browse through different categories and search, and buy green products, and members will get a 20-40% discount compared to regular retail. I'm writing the social media plan, so it's my job to figure out how we're going to use blogs, Facebook, and how we're going to create relationships with bloggers. It's kind of like building a marketing department.
Q: When did you to become an "eco-entrepreneur"?
SG: The first green company I started was in 2001--I started Renewable Choice Energy, which is now one of the bigger wind credit companies.
Q: What inspired that company?
SG: When I was 21 I started a dot-com at the end of the bubble, and a buddy and I raised $16 million for a project that was basically like Youtube too early. That was at the end of the 90s. After two years of working on that, a couple friends and I moved to Colorado. We knew we wanted to start something, but we weren't quite sure what. So we spent 9 months thinking about that, and we came up with this idea for a wind credit company. And this was only about 6 months after the whole concept of wind credits came about. The protocol was really new, so we just started the company.
Q: What did you do after that project?
SG: I spent a year working as a freelance graphic designer, and then I started a green design marketing and ad agency. I spent a year doing that, and made about every mistake a person can make running a business, and ended up driving it into the ground. Then I moved back to Maine and co-founded Green Options, which is a green blog network.
Q. What was the original intent of Green Options?
SG: Well, originally I was contacted by David Anderson, the other founder, who had come across a blog post of mine and decided to contact me. He had an idea of building an online application that makes it easy for people to figure out how solar panels would work in their house. You could just punch in their address, and it would tell you things, like, you have this much sunshine, and this is what your rebate would be, and stuff like that--it told people how long it was going to take make a return on their investment. My idea was to build a green blog around it to give it credibility. Originally it wasn't a network, it was just Green options. I just hired all of my friends, all the prominent, top green bloggers, so it wasn't that hard to build a strong stable of writers.
Q: How would you describe the green blogging landscape right now?
SG: Right now it's interesting. Treehugger was always the considered the big green blog. And it spawned so many different blogs that did the same thing -- maybe a little different this way or that. And in that environment, all of these one-man shops and small blogs were able to find a niche and grow. For example, if you look Ecogeek, by Hank Green. He blogs about Greeen Technology, and no one does it better. Or take a look at ecorazzi.com, run by Michael d'Estries, which is green celebrity news. So over the years these types of bloggers have been able to build these really cool, well traveled sites. But in the last year, some of the bigger corporate money has entered the scene--like Hearst media with The Daily Green. The Discovery Channel owns TreeHugger, and now they have Planet Green. And the company that I work for, The Mother Nature Network, they're in an acquiring mood. They bought the web content of Plenty Magazine, which went under. So, in a couple years there's definitely going to be more consolidation, and a lot of these one-man shops are going to be swept up by bigger fish.
Q: Do you think some of these media networks might start featuring some real reporting, to supplement the blogging?
SG: I would hope so. I know if I were going to start a media site right now, real reporting would definitely be part of the mix. There's always going to be blog networks because it's so easy. It takes a lot less time to produce a couple posts per day than it does to do a bunch of in-depth reporting. But real reporting is able to get you above the echo chamber fray.
Q: What drives you as a blogger?
Shea Gunther: I like sharing things that I find. Pretty much for as long as I've consumed media I've been the guy sending off an email to someone saying, "Hey, I thought you might like this." I started blogging before it was called blogging, back in 2001 or 2002. You can actually go to Archive.org and search sheagunther.org and you can still see some of the posts-- random thoughts and links and whatnot. Blogging just suits the way that I'm wired, and the fact that I've been able to find a way to make a living blogging is miraculous. Being a blogger is awesome.
Q: What are you working on right now?
SG: I write for Mother Nature Network, two posts a day, Monday through Friday. And about month ago I started working with a company that's kind of like a green Costco. There will be an online club, and you'll be able to browse through different categories and search, and buy green products, and members will get a 20-40% discount compared to regular retail. I'm writing the social media plan, so it's my job to figure out how we're going to use blogs, Facebook, and how we're going to create relationships with bloggers. It's kind of like building a marketing department.
Q: When did you to become an "eco-entrepreneur"?
SG: The first green company I started was in 2001--I started Renewable Choice Energy, which is now one of the bigger wind credit companies.
Q: What inspired that company?
SG: When I was 21 I started a dot-com at the end of the bubble, and a buddy and I raised $16 million for a project that was basically like Youtube too early. That was at the end of the 90s. After two years of working on that, a couple friends and I moved to Colorado. We knew we wanted to start something, but we weren't quite sure what. So we spent 9 months thinking about that, and we came up with this idea for a wind credit company. And this was only about 6 months after the whole concept of wind credits came about. The protocol was really new, so we just started the company.
Q: What did you do after that project?
SG: I spent a year working as a freelance graphic designer, and then I started a green design marketing and ad agency. I spent a year doing that, and made about every mistake a person can make running a business, and ended up driving it into the ground. Then I moved back to Maine and co-founded Green Options, which is a green blog network.
Q. What was the original intent of Green Options?
SG: Well, originally I was contacted by David Anderson, the other founder, who had come across a blog post of mine and decided to contact me. He had an idea of building an online application that makes it easy for people to figure out how solar panels would work in their house. You could just punch in their address, and it would tell you things, like, you have this much sunshine, and this is what your rebate would be, and stuff like that--it told people how long it was going to take make a return on their investment. My idea was to build a green blog around it to give it credibility. Originally it wasn't a network, it was just Green options. I just hired all of my friends, all the prominent, top green bloggers, so it wasn't that hard to build a strong stable of writers.
Q: How would you describe the green blogging landscape right now?
SG: Right now it's interesting. Treehugger was always the considered the big green blog. And it spawned so many different blogs that did the same thing -- maybe a little different this way or that. And in that environment, all of these one-man shops and small blogs were able to find a niche and grow. For example, if you look Ecogeek, by Hank Green. He blogs about Greeen Technology, and no one does it better. Or take a look at ecorazzi.com, run by Michael d'Estries, which is green celebrity news. So over the years these types of bloggers have been able to build these really cool, well traveled sites. But in the last year, some of the bigger corporate money has entered the scene--like Hearst media with The Daily Green. The Discovery Channel owns TreeHugger, and now they have Planet Green. And the company that I work for, The Mother Nature Network, they're in an acquiring mood. They bought the web content of Plenty Magazine, which went under. So, in a couple years there's definitely going to be more consolidation, and a lot of these one-man shops are going to be swept up by bigger fish.
Q: Do you think some of these media networks might start featuring some real reporting, to supplement the blogging?
SG: I would hope so. I know if I were going to start a media site right now, real reporting would definitely be part of the mix. There's always going to be blog networks because it's so easy. It takes a lot less time to produce a couple posts per day than it does to do a bunch of in-depth reporting. But real reporting is able to get you above the echo chamber fray.
2.12.2010
Fine Lines
So far on this entrepreneurial quest, I've picked up that making money on the internet as a publisher is a tricky enterprise--especially if the project aims to be journalistic.
It didn't used to be so tricky. In the beginning, when advertisers didn't know anything about the internet or its users, they were much more willing to spend money on, say, a display ad. Now, they know how many users click on ads, and they know how long those people stay on the product's site. And they use both of these indicators to determine whether or not advertising on a specific site is worth their while.
Take for example a site like Ecopolitology, which is part of Matt Embrey's LiveOak Network. Say there's a Nissan Leaf ad on the site. I don't know what Nissan's sales strategy is, but it would make sense that they would be targeting readers of a site like Ecopolitology--which focuses on the politics of climate change and clean energy. But Nissan doesn't want to be paying for ads unless people are clicking AND reading about the Leaf, and this puts publishers like Embrey in an awkward situation. Already strapped for cash and somewhat at the mercy of the advertisers, it may not be a smart business decision to run a story that examines the drawbacks of electric cars, especially if it mentions the Leaf. On the other hand, posts examining the environmental benefits of electric cars, or a video that highlights the high-tech features the Leaf, is the kind of content that might inspire more click-throughs.
Obviously, every advertiser offers a different product, and each relationship is different. Some--like, for example, one with an online college, or a Haiti earthquake relief organization--are not so inherently awkward as the Nissan example. But still, the current situation is something wannabe publishers, as well as wannabe multimedia content-makers, should be thinking about.
It didn't used to be so tricky. In the beginning, when advertisers didn't know anything about the internet or its users, they were much more willing to spend money on, say, a display ad. Now, they know how many users click on ads, and they know how long those people stay on the product's site. And they use both of these indicators to determine whether or not advertising on a specific site is worth their while.
Take for example a site like Ecopolitology, which is part of Matt Embrey's LiveOak Network. Say there's a Nissan Leaf ad on the site. I don't know what Nissan's sales strategy is, but it would make sense that they would be targeting readers of a site like Ecopolitology--which focuses on the politics of climate change and clean energy. But Nissan doesn't want to be paying for ads unless people are clicking AND reading about the Leaf, and this puts publishers like Embrey in an awkward situation. Already strapped for cash and somewhat at the mercy of the advertisers, it may not be a smart business decision to run a story that examines the drawbacks of electric cars, especially if it mentions the Leaf. On the other hand, posts examining the environmental benefits of electric cars, or a video that highlights the high-tech features the Leaf, is the kind of content that might inspire more click-throughs.
Obviously, every advertiser offers a different product, and each relationship is different. Some--like, for example, one with an online college, or a Haiti earthquake relief organization--are not so inherently awkward as the Nissan example. But still, the current situation is something wannabe publishers, as well as wannabe multimedia content-makers, should be thinking about.
2.04.2010
Q&A with Matt Embrey, co-founder and publisher of LiveOak Media
Over the past five years, the green blogosphere has become a force to be reckoned with. And I would bet it's here to stay, because the mountain of interesting news and information about sustainability-related topics is growing every day. I had a chance to chat via telephone with Matt Embrey, the co-founder of the green blog network LiveOak Media, and he had a lot of interesting things to say about content, building readership, and navigating the turbulent internet advertising market.
Q: How did LiveOak originate?
Matt Embrey: It's actually an ongoing story because we're still coming together right now. A friend and I started with one site, called Green Upgrader, about two years ago. We both still work full-time jobs. Right off the bat, Green Upgrader was focused more along the lines of product-based, specific upgrades for your life. It started taking off and doing really well. It was on the early-middle half, I'd say, of the green uprising on the internet. Not quite as early as Sustainablog, which has been around since 2005, or Treehugger, which came before that. Anyway, it took off and it kind of morphed into a general green living site where we were publishing all kinds of news, from posts about corporate responsibility to interesting humanitarian issues. I realized we would be better suited to have separate channels for the stuff that's a bit more focused, and bring Green Upgrader back to just products. That's when I started working with Tim Hurst, and we started this network. And we're actually still in the process of rolling out the different channels. Ecopolitology will focus on policy and politics. Earth and Industry will focus more on sustainable business. And we have two more coming down the pike--one will focus on green technology, and one will focus more on advocacy and activism. Green Upgrader will still be there. That allows us to tailor the content more towards the audience. We don't have the resources to be a Treehugger and publish 40 articles a day, so we decided to refine the message down to these specific channels, and I think that makes for a better conversation with the readers.
Q: Did you find that specific types of content on Green Upgrader were consistently more popular than others?
ME: Certain topics did get better engagement than others. What really drove it, though, was editorial engagement. It's fine to publish an article a couple people might post, but it's a much more enriching experience when the author of that article is posing a question to the audience or at least is responding to the comments and interacting in the social media area--wherever that story has moved on to. That way the conversation continues beyond the original post and article. That led logically to having the whole publication be more of a focused conversation, instead of bouncing around from topic to topic.
Q: So you found that the posts with more editorial voice were popular with readers?
ME: Well, there's definitely a certain flavor that people tend to like. And I think when you engage the audience, either by posing a question or talking about something that is relevant to them, as opposed to just reporting on a piece of news, it tends to do a better. You can quantify popular in a different ways. Popular could mean that it gets picked up by a lot of other sites and syndicated in different ways--popular with bloggers and journalists. Other times it's popular because it gets a lot of comments on site. And the third way it could get popular is if it gets picked up on Digg or Twitter and it permeates like that. Social media is really geared toward the activism and advocacy sort of articles. People respond really well to that type of thing.
Q: What is your strategy for building readership?
ME: When we started out, it was all social media traffic. We spent a considerable amount of time out engaging in social media with people, submitting to Digg and responding to comments and Twittering and whatnot. I was spending more time promoting these articles than I was actually writing them. But we've refocusing our efforts on quality editorial content as opposed to the social media. Social media is great way to get your content in front of a lot of eyeballs. At the end of 2008, if you got an article that was really popular on Digg, you could have 50,000 people come to the site in one day. But what ends up happening is that only a small percentage of those visitors stick and become readers, so the conversion from those types of social media aren't really high.
Q: How does the change in philosophy affect your revenue model?
ME: Right now we are all display advertising. You can get a lot of traffic from something like Digg, but it ends up watering down the conversation on the blog. You don't have a lot of engaged people, and those are the people that tend to be more interested in clicking on sponsored links and going through. So while advertisers are paying for every time the ad shows, they are also evaluating what kind of a return they are getting. They could put their ad on a site that gets a million hits, but if none of those people that go to that site actually care, then they've wasted their money. From the business standpoint, as a publication, you want to produce quality content and keep your readers engaged in a way that, hopefully, the advertisers will also fit into it. Otherwise, they'll advertise once and they won't come back.
Q: How did LiveOak originate?
Matt Embrey: It's actually an ongoing story because we're still coming together right now. A friend and I started with one site, called Green Upgrader, about two years ago. We both still work full-time jobs. Right off the bat, Green Upgrader was focused more along the lines of product-based, specific upgrades for your life. It started taking off and doing really well. It was on the early-middle half, I'd say, of the green uprising on the internet. Not quite as early as Sustainablog, which has been around since 2005, or Treehugger, which came before that. Anyway, it took off and it kind of morphed into a general green living site where we were publishing all kinds of news, from posts about corporate responsibility to interesting humanitarian issues. I realized we would be better suited to have separate channels for the stuff that's a bit more focused, and bring Green Upgrader back to just products. That's when I started working with Tim Hurst, and we started this network. And we're actually still in the process of rolling out the different channels. Ecopolitology will focus on policy and politics. Earth and Industry will focus more on sustainable business. And we have two more coming down the pike--one will focus on green technology, and one will focus more on advocacy and activism. Green Upgrader will still be there. That allows us to tailor the content more towards the audience. We don't have the resources to be a Treehugger and publish 40 articles a day, so we decided to refine the message down to these specific channels, and I think that makes for a better conversation with the readers.
Q: Did you find that specific types of content on Green Upgrader were consistently more popular than others?
ME: Certain topics did get better engagement than others. What really drove it, though, was editorial engagement. It's fine to publish an article a couple people might post, but it's a much more enriching experience when the author of that article is posing a question to the audience or at least is responding to the comments and interacting in the social media area--wherever that story has moved on to. That way the conversation continues beyond the original post and article. That led logically to having the whole publication be more of a focused conversation, instead of bouncing around from topic to topic.
Q: So you found that the posts with more editorial voice were popular with readers?
ME: Well, there's definitely a certain flavor that people tend to like. And I think when you engage the audience, either by posing a question or talking about something that is relevant to them, as opposed to just reporting on a piece of news, it tends to do a better. You can quantify popular in a different ways. Popular could mean that it gets picked up by a lot of other sites and syndicated in different ways--popular with bloggers and journalists. Other times it's popular because it gets a lot of comments on site. And the third way it could get popular is if it gets picked up on Digg or Twitter and it permeates like that. Social media is really geared toward the activism and advocacy sort of articles. People respond really well to that type of thing.
Q: What is your strategy for building readership?
ME: When we started out, it was all social media traffic. We spent a considerable amount of time out engaging in social media with people, submitting to Digg and responding to comments and Twittering and whatnot. I was spending more time promoting these articles than I was actually writing them. But we've refocusing our efforts on quality editorial content as opposed to the social media. Social media is great way to get your content in front of a lot of eyeballs. At the end of 2008, if you got an article that was really popular on Digg, you could have 50,000 people come to the site in one day. But what ends up happening is that only a small percentage of those visitors stick and become readers, so the conversion from those types of social media aren't really high.
Q: How does the change in philosophy affect your revenue model?
ME: Right now we are all display advertising. You can get a lot of traffic from something like Digg, but it ends up watering down the conversation on the blog. You don't have a lot of engaged people, and those are the people that tend to be more interested in clicking on sponsored links and going through. So while advertisers are paying for every time the ad shows, they are also evaluating what kind of a return they are getting. They could put their ad on a site that gets a million hits, but if none of those people that go to that site actually care, then they've wasted their money. From the business standpoint, as a publication, you want to produce quality content and keep your readers engaged in a way that, hopefully, the advertisers will also fit into it. Otherwise, they'll advertise once and they won't come back.
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