Blog Network MyKinda May Be Pulling A BlogNation - Writers Going Unpaid
Michael Arrington
21 comments »
Anyone who watched the BlogNation implosion last year certainly doesn’t want to see a rerun of that particular debacle. But there are worrying signs coming from Romania-based blog network MyKinda that suggest the young startup is facing some of the same cash flow issues that plagued BlogNation.
Like BlogNation, MyKinda is a network of country-specific blogs. It’s somewhat different in that the blogs are written in local languages (BlogNation was all English), and it covers a wider variety of topics (BlogNation was tech news only, MyKinda covers business, politics, culture, lifestyle, science and tech/gadgets). MyKinda launched blogs in Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and the Ukraine.
The two networks have a common founder in Lee Wilkins, although Wilkins left BlogNation early on under allegedly questionable circumstances (I wrote about some of the issues here). As BlogNation’s debts rose and funding failed to happen, Wilkins started MyKinda to compete head on.
The biggest issue with Blognation was that writers went half a year or more without pay, while being told by the company that funding was imminent, or had already happened. The funding never happened, and the company folded in December. Writers were owed, by some estimates, as much as $200,000 in aggregate.
Now MyKinda is falling behind on payments to writers too, although on a much smaller scale. And to Wilkins credit, he seems to be dealing with the problems in a much more orderly fashion than BlogNation did. He’s shut all but the Romanian blogs, he says in a blog post. And he promises to pay the writers of the other blogs what they are owed - around €11,500. In an email to me, he writes:
As you may know we launched Russia and Bulgaria on Sept 16th ‘07. Unfortunately, at the beginning of February, I decided to close down RU & BG to focus efforts on Romania, and because RU & BG were burning a lot of cash. €15-20k per month. Closing these two countries (along with Ukraine) was very tough, as it dented plans.
I close them because I am bootstrapping MyKinda alone by myself, and right now I cannot keep it all going. I am not saying we are heading to the deadpool. When closing RU & BG, I occurred debts of approx €6k for RU & €5k for BG. €500 for Ukraine. The past month we have been going through a little cost cutting here @ MK, as we are generating alot of uniques/visitors.
And we are nothing like Blognation, the debts occured for RU & BG were for January 2008 until closing them in February. I have never lied to my people, maybe a little lack of communication yes, but lying, no! I should’ve, in hindsight, communicated earlier that I couldn’t keep RU & BG going, but I had hopes of being in a position to finance it myself. Right now, I am in the process of making calls, to get my people their money asap, as i promised. I am not a thief, nor am i liar. These people delivered for me, I will deliver my promise to them.
More as this develops, but MyKinda is on DeadPool watch.
We are slowly launching in more countries. After the succes in Holland with DutchCowboys.nl (Michael you know Karin ;)) we are now on beta in Germany (yep Germancowboys.de). Soon Belgium and France will folow.
We think that you need to pay your local editor (blogger), this also create commitment, focus and even more time for fun.
too bad! But you know who makes money blogging? Nobody… it’s the stuff around it that makes the cash. The blog is only a spotlight… just like a cheap printer and expensive print cartridges. Forget blogging… do something awesome and then blog about it :p
We are as far as we can see the first blog in the world that has related tweets
from Twitter. (funny exemple: http://www.dutchcowboys.nl/gadgets/13010). So next move, eveb pay your Twitterrazzi for spreading the word !
Life is difficult.
Sorry to see them go..
I provided a Russian angle to MyKinda on http://blog.quintura.com/2008/.....g-network/
Irony.
Good luck Lee,
Hope you get it sorted,
Tom
Running a blog group is not easy but can be very profitable if you run it correctly. Private Ad sales, Targeted Offers, SEO sales can make a fortune if sold correctly.
If you want to do it right buy an established group and get stuck in!
http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace/auction/21383
This is really a bad news for bloggers but we can only hope they will soon be remunerated…
Some corrections here from the Russian angle: although the debts Lee is quoting are for January and February, the editors in Russia and Bulgaria (Dimitar and me) were not paid for December either. And we also had a translator working for MyKinda Russia - he was translating Russian content into English and three months of his work did not pay him a dime. And it looks from the email that Lee does not even remember about him.
And believe me, lack of communication is not the right word here - hunting for your boss everywhere for weeks asking for any information and explanation of future plans without any replies from him is not exactly lack of communication, it’s absence of communication entirely.
Looks like they’re taking a page out of the playbook of Poland under the Warsaw Pact… The blooger pretend to blog, and MyKinda pretends to pay them.
1. I must say that it’s not easy to run a virtual startup in Eastern Europe.
2. I’m not sure where the number of €15-20k per month did come from.
3. I believe we could sort these problems out amicably.
hey lee my best wishes are with you. I am sure you will surely fight back and come more stronger than before.
Best wishes Lee.
Tough times! But I don’t quite get how you can expect to pay a blogger a reasonable wage with a classic blogging network model. It is bound to rise and fall.
Well, Well Mr A. Gloating again in someone else’s mishaps. Can’t believe you’re still flogging the BlogNation horse!
I really like MyKinda and think that Lee is doing a great job in how he’s handling this venture. It is *really* tough to raise money in eastern europe for what a a great idea. If Lee was in Silicon Valley this would be funded.
I don’t think MyKinda will be in the deadpool. Lee will make it happen and his idea is fundable.
If I had cash I’d fund it. Two reasons: emerging market of net savvy users and the localization play on SEO. It’s a big opportunity for global advertisers.
Lee: call me and let me know how I can help.
John
Maybe you know it already but he also closed the business in Romania… this very morning.