Toronto based b5Media is changing the way it pays bloggers in its hundreds-strong blog network, according to an email memo sent out to partners by CEO Jeremy Wright and copied below.
Gone are guaranteed payments of “$100-$200/month” plus bonuses for traffic. In its place are much smaller guaranteed payments plus monthly bonuses for “press coverage you or your blog gets, exclusive interviews you land and growth of your blog.” Blogs can also get a quarterly bonus based on a scoring system.
The traffic bonus system was over-rewarding bloggers, says Wright. The new system will likely result in a big pay cut, but Wright says it’s necessary to align incentives:
I’m sure by now you’ve run your blog through the system above and realized that (with a handful of exceptions), due to the change to Omniture as a stats package, your pay will go down. For some it will go down significantly. Obviously this isn’t the intent of the new pay system, it was just the flaw in the previous stats package. For the last two years, b5 has been effectively paying bloggers 2-3x more in traffic bonuses than they were actually getting. While, again, this isn’t a blogger’s fault, neither is the new pay system about “cutting pay”. Any reduction in pay is due almost exclusively to the reality of using an inaccurate pay system in the past vs an industry standard third-party audited system going forward.
While this is certainly not good news for the already low paid bloggers in the b5Media network, it isn’t necessarily a sign that the company itself is failing. Rumor is that b5Media has raised a new round of financing and will be announcing it soon. In April, we reported that merger discussions with Technorati fell through at the last minute.
The full email memo is below. I’ve contacted Wright for a comment.
Good afternoon everyone,
As part of b5media’s evolution, we attempt to update our blogger pay system every year. This is both to fix issues in whatever system we were using previously as well as to evolve as an industry in how we pay and reward the people who make the magic happen here at b5 (ie: you!).
Obviously pay is only a small part of being a part of any network like b5media. Soft perks like press access, increased profile and free hosting are valuable, as are community benefits like being part of a group of similarly passionate bloggers, contests and channel events and ongoing training programs.
But while it’s a small part of the overall experience here at b5media, we fully recognize that pay is an important one. Which is why this year’s new pay system has taken us longer than previous iterations. We’ve spent most of this summer working with CEs and a handful of bloggers on the new system. We’ve gone through four completely different iterations, and within each of those several refinements were made before settling on the system we’re announcing today.
The “Old” (ie: Current) Pay System
Before I get into the new pay system, I wanted to cover issues with the last pay system. Some of those issues are issues for you (bloggers), others are issues for b5 as a company. Because while we love the community and want to do everything we can to make sure you guys are happy and grow both as bloggers and as people, we do still have bills to pay and investors to keep happy. 
When we designed the current pay system, it was in response to our previous model of doing a type of revenue share. The details of that don’t matter too much. What matters is that the current pay system of base pay + traffic bonus was really designed to encourage bloggers to build a community around their blog and to be a part of the larger community within which their blog sits. We felt that ultimately these things would drive traffic and so while traffic in and of itself wasn’t the goal, we recognized that more comments, links, posts, participation in other blogs, etc all drove traffic … and as a result felt that keeping it simple and rewarding traffic was the easiest way to go.
Sadly, as would have been obvious in hindsight, by only rewarding traffic and length of service what we were in fact encouraging was “traffic for traffic’s sake” as well as pure longevity. While we’d hoped to create a striving for quality, because we weren’t specifically rewarding quality it became harder and harder to push for it in any systematic way.
The other major issue with the current pay system is that the base pay, while theoretically viable for having paid bloggers for writing regardless of their traffic, created some very difficult economics. At the end of the day we’d always sought to have us and bloggers “on the same side of the table”. Making money the same way, enjoying the same growth and effectively being on the same team. However (and this obviously isn’t the only reason this happened) by paying a base pay up front when b5 wasn’t making money, there were a whole host of blogs and bloggers that were making 100-200$/month for very low traffic blogs. Blogs that were making 30-50$/month at the best of times (and less at the worst).
Dreaming Up a New Pay System
So obviously when we started looking at a new pay system in April, we knew we wanted to change a few fundamental things. First and foremost, we wanted to be able to reward quality content irrespective of traffic. While we believe quality content will drive traffic (so bloggers get paid for both!), we also believe that by specifically rewarding quality content we will ideally fuel more of it.
Second, we realized that any new pay system had to be as simple as possible. While it would be fun to take into account traffic growth, post growth, comment growth, “peer review scores”, bounce rates, visit length, and a host of other variables, it would be basically impossible for a blogger to know what they were likely to earn. Not that we didn’t try to make a system just like that work (to this day I’m pathetically proud of the fuzzy math I employed to do just that!), but ultimately it was too complicated.
Third, we wanted CEs to have more input. We wanted them to be able to point at a great blog, blogger or post and say “that’s exceptional, reward THAT!” … without creating an awkward situation where a blogger who perhaps didn’t get along with their CE felt slighted.
Fourth, we wanted to begin to define a “path to success” for bloggers. The challenge with the old pay system that the only way “up” was to get more traffic. And while traffic will always be a core metric for the business (it’s how we make money, after all!), we wanted there to be other “rewards” bloggers felt were within grasp than just getting more pageviews.
And finally, we wanted to ensure that while we rewarded larger bloggers, we were also specifically creating rewards for smaller bloggers. Because as we all know, while it’s certainly easier to be writing a small blog as part of a network than all alone without anyone to help, it’s still a very hard and demanding task.
Oh, sorry and one final thing: MINIMUM POSTS ARE EVIL!!! Our intent with minimum posts was truly to say “here’s the minimum we feel you should do to grow your blog as fast as possible”. But there were two problems with that: first and foremost it actually created a “goal” for bloggers, and so after that goal it was easy to get complacent (we’re not pointing any fingers, this is our fault, not yours) and second for some blogs more posts didn’t directly correlate to more traffic.
So while we still believe regularly posting new content is better, we also believe that for a blog to be successful, more than just a small fraction of a blogger’s time should be spent participating in the larger community within which their blog resides (ie: outside b5). Bloggers will see a larger return (and more traffic) from devoting time to specific “outside the blog” promotional/community activities. Great content drives traffic. Great content that people are actually aware of drives more!
Pay System Basics
There are two sides to the new pay system: traffic tiers and bonuses. Traffic tiers are, as they sound, “groups” of blogs based on how much traffic you’re getting. The lowest tiers get a flat rate pay per month (not including bonuses). The highest tier gets a set CPM ($X for every 1000 pageviews recorded in Omniture for your blog).
Bonuses are grouped into either monthly bonuses or quarterly bonuses. Monthly bonuses are based on things like press coverage you or your blog gets, exclusive interviews you land and growth of your blog (to reward smaller blogs). Quarterly bonuses are based on a new score card for blogs (ie: the better the blog, the higher the quarterly bonus).
New blogs will receive $50 per month for the first three months, after which they will be placed into the appropriate tier based on traffic. Bloggers taking over pre-existing blogs that fall in tier 4 will also receive $50 per month for the first three months while they get settled and have an opportunity to see what they can do to get their traffic up so they can stay, or grow past, Tier 3.
The pay system is structured with the lowest 3 tiers as a flat rate because adopting a pure CPM approach for a blog doing 5K pageviews per month seemed more than a little silly. It also creates specific goals which bloggers can aim for (instead of every month wanting an extra 2% or whatnot). The reason the highest tier is purely CPM based is because at that point, the blog is profitable for b5, so CPM ends up being the easiest means of ensuring larger blogs continue to get paid a competitive rate (industry average currently sits between $2-6CPM, even at the largest networks, without bonuses).
Details, Details, Details!
So, how, exactly, does the new system work and what is the pay for each tier?
1. Tier 1: 30,000+ pageviews/month – $4CPM
2. Tier 2: 10,000 – 29,999 pageviews/month – $100 flat rate ($5-$10 CPM)
3. Tier 3: 5,000 – 9,999 pageviews/month – $50 ($5-$10 CPM)
4. Tier 4: 0 – 4,999 pageviews/month – $25 ($5 -$50 CPM)
For Tiers 2+3, we are effectively artificially inflating the CPM to ensure that a blogger in that tier is encouraged to continue growing. Because while “dropping” to a $4 CPM might seem “unfair” to some, paying a blogger who’s doing 541 pageviews per month just $2-3 (actual example) wouldn’t be fair either. The flat-rate tier system allows us to reward bloggers who cross specific thresholds (5K/10K/30K pageviews/month). In addition, much of our training will be focused on helping bloggers who are in a tier they aren’t happy with (specifically Tier 4 bloggers) to get out of that tier and to work on specific traffic growth strategies that we’ll help with.
Tier 1 is really the “self-sustaining” blogs. Blogs doing more than 1,000 pageviews per day, in our experience, are ones that are going to grow at a very reasonable rate just due to the existing community on the blogs. On blogs of that size, installing community-oriented widgets adds real traffic, because there is a community large enough to get real value out of them.
The 3-Month Temporary Pay Protection Floor
I’m sure by now you’ve run your blog through the system above and realized that (with a handful of exceptions), due to the change to Omniture as a stats package, your pay will go down. For some it will go down significantly. Obviously this isn’t the intent of the new pay system, it was just the flaw in the previous stats package. For the last two years, b5 has been effectively paying bloggers 2-3x more in traffic bonuses than they were actually getting. While, again, this isn’t a blogger’s fault, neither is the new pay system about “cutting pay”. Any reduction in pay is due almost exclusively to the reality of using an inaccurate pay system in the past vs an industry standard third-party audited system going forward.
However, again, because the change in stats (and hence pay) isn’t bloggers’ fault, we wanted to give a window within which bloggers could (if they so desired) increase their traffic or go after specific bonuses to increase their overall pay.
As a result, b5 has put in place a “floor” for 3 months: you will not earn less than 50% of what you earned in September, even if your stats were inflated (and thus dropped) by 60%, 70% even 92% (as happened to one blogger). Because this change isn’t your fault, we’re meeting bloggers who have seen a significant drop in traffic halfway to give them time to grow their traffic to a level where they are happy.
The Bonus Plan
The first part of the pay system (the traffic tiers) is designed to reward bloggers the same way b5 gets paid. While we’ve done our best to ensure it’s fair (by subsidizing smaller blogs with a higher CPM and with a temporary floor to protect bloggers due to stats changes), our goal with this new pay system (as I said at the start) is to truly encourage bloggers to go outside their blog and outside their network to build community and be part of the existing community in their niche. Via commenting on other blogs, reaching out to larger bloggers in your area to form friendships, participating in social media sites like Mixx, StumbleUpon, Lipstick and Digg, participating in forums you can do as much (if not more) to grow your blog as via writing new content.
At the same time, and CEs were very adamant on this (thanks guys!), we wanted to be able to reward non-traffic-driving endeavours such as you being interviewed in the mainstream media or landing an exclusive interview, we wanted to reward specific non-traffic-generating (by and large) things that bloggers are already doing, which we love and which we want to specifically encourage.
In addition, bonuses will be allocated based on quantitative things such as % increase in comments and traffic, mostly so that smaller blogs can get a little extra money in the bank as their blog grows.
Finally, every quarter we’ll continue to do performance reviews, and as part of those great blogging will entitle you to a quarterly bonus as well.
This list of bonuses is by no means complete, so if you have suggestions for other monthly bonuses we really do want to hear them. We’ve attempted to balance traffic-generating endeavours with community efforts with pure growth, and if you have other items we can add to our bonus list, please let us know.
Bonus Details
Our initial monthly bonuses (again, please feel free to suggest more!) are:
1. Major social media sites frontpage (Mixx/Digg/Lipstick/StumbleUpon/etc) or coverage by leading industry blog: up to $50
2. Exclusive interviews: up to $50
3. Press coverage: up to $50
4. % increase in comments: up to $50
5. % increase in traffic: up to $50
Each of the categories is designed with an initial cap (we can move this if it makes sense later). The first 3 categories of bonuses are on sliding scales. Obviously getting covered in TechCrunch is more important than getting covered at CenterNetworks (as much as I love Allen!), getting an interview with Bill Gates is more important than one with me. It will be up to you to alert b5 and your CE when you feel something you’ve earned a bonus on the first 3 items. The last 2 will be calculated automatically.
These monthly bonuses allow smaller bloggers to double or triple their revenue if they are able to go “outside their blog” and build community, participate in the industry, build connections, etc. All the stuff you’d do if it were your blog, obviously, and stuff most bloggers are doing now – we just felt since it is adding value to the blog, we want to reward you for that value!
At the same time, we’re very focused on ensuring that not all bonuses are traffic related. So even if you don’t qualify for one of the initial monthly bonuses, quarterly bonuses will also be paid out for high quality content, “evergreen” content (ie: Top 10 lists, etc) and for being an active member of the b5media community.
Next Steps
Assuming we haven’t screwed something up (let us know if we have!), we’ll be answering your questions all this week. Next week we’ll be sending out new contracts, and assuming we haven’t (okay, lots of assumptions!) screwed that up, we’ll get you a final version in time for the 15th. We’ll cancel the old contracts on the 15th, effective the 31st which will give you 2 weeks to review the contracts and if you are going to continue writing to sign the contract and get it back to us.
So the schedule is:
· Week 1 (now): review/answer questions on pay system
· Week 2: review/answer questions on contracts
· Nov 1: have new contracts in and effective
· Dec 15: your first pay under the new contract and pay system
Questions/Comments/Concerns?
Alright, so hopefully this has answered questions and confusions around pay. Please feel free to air any questions, comments or concerns here. While we’re confident the pay is fair and balanced, we’ve made our fair share of mistakes in the past and so aren’t going to guarantee we haven’t missed something!
______________________
Jeremy Wright, CEO, b5media
300 blogs damn. are they biggest blog stable?
Pretty unethical to re-post an entire private email publicly, in my opinion. Nevertheless, I know some bloggers at b5 who are going to make a little less, but I know a couple who are going to make more too in the new pay model. Looks like they are just trying to avoid paying a base pay to underperforming blogs.
Second (on the unethical part).
Third(on the unethical part). TechCrunch must stop doing this!
I don’t see the problem. Sending it out to hundreds of its bloggers doesn’t make it public by any means, but it does make it inevitable that anyone who wanted to know what was in it could find out.
The only problem with posting it in full is that most of the detail is pretty uninteresting to anyone who wouldn’t have received the email already.
No, it is not unethical. We post internal memos, letters, and documents from businesses we get all the time. So does the New York Times. So does every news organization in the world.
As long as we didn’t obtain the information unethically (which we didn’t, it was sent to us unasked for), it is fair game.
It’s called news. And the reason we post things like this is to give you, our readers, a deeper insight into the businesses and industries we cover.
Internal memos still hold their copyright unless the author has released it to the public. The addressee of a physical letter becomes of the owner of the physical letter only, i.e., the addressee is not conferred reproduction or publication rights over the letter received. Those are still held by the author. I suggest you get a legal opinion Eric. Copying an entire letter is difficult to defend as fair use.
Unless of course, fair use applies. NEWS IS PER-SE FAIR USE.
So get off your high horses already, you damn b5 employees. We get it, you don’t want your company embarrassed. Your company should have thought of that before it sent out a single email to hundreds of employees telling them that their pay was being cut.
Think the world is full of stupid people? You’re right. Read all about them at DumbCriminals.com, the “Daily Show” of dumb criminal stories.
Mike, I’m not sure how you contacted me, but I have no emails/skypes/twitters/etc from you.
That said, the new pay system isn’t about cutting pay. For many bloggers there will be a cut in pay, but that is purely due to the factor hinted at in the quote: a change in stats.
As an industry, as you know, blogging (or at least media style blogging) has had to evolve its analytics and stats. Gone are the days where one company can say they have 30MM pageviews/month another can say 50MM and another can say 70MM and they all be telling the truth.
The fundamental reason for the “pay cut” is that we’ve moved from a very inaccurate stats package (AWStats) to a very accurate one (Omniture) and for many blogs the old system over-inflated their traffic by an average of 60% ish.
The blogs that are seeing the largest base pay cut (ie: pre-bonuses, which can add up to a couple of hundred dollars per month) are those in the 0-10K pageviews/month range. A range where bloggers would make pennies or small dollars doing it independently.
But, per the email, there isn’t a blog in the network getting a net CPM lower than $4. Is this a cut in pay? Maybe. But I’m not aware of anywhere else where hundreds of bloggers can get guaranteed a $4 CPM (plus bonuses) to blog about niche subjects. It’s a very fair CPM (before bonuses) and well inside industry averages (at the high end, even).
That said, that doesn’t mean this isn’t painful for bloggers. And that’s why we worked very closely with our Channel Editors to find something that was as fair as possible given the change in analytics and stats.
It isn’t perfect. It can’t be perfect, given the change in stats. But we do feel that it’s as fair.
“Gone are the days where one company can say they have 30MM pageviews/month another can say 50MM and another can say 70MM and they all be telling the truth.”
Should be “and they all be telling the truth when they actually have the same traffic”.
If you have been using AWStats, you have LONG been deceived. It reported up to 30K in hits, but when my friend switched to Google Analytics, he was so disappointed to only see a few hundred visitors a day.
I’m surprised it took a blog network this long to realize AWStats’ inaccuracy.
Google Analytics is just as bad, it misses anyone who has Javascript disabled and has questionable ideas about what is and is not a unique pageview. I’ve found at times that it under reports my actual traffic by as much as 70% for an entire week or more. I’ve had instances were a story got a link from Fark that sent 800-1000 views that GA only counted in the 20’s.
It didn’t take us long to realize the issue. But we didn’t want to change stats on bloggers several times over the year as we found the right solution. We instead felt changing stats just *once* was the right way to go.
Jeremy – sent you a text message, which is usually a great way to get someone quickly. Was going to follow up today but we got your response.
You work seriously blogging and get paid almost nothing, better to start up your own blogs and build a network with in a small group then selling out yourself for damn cheap!
I was thinking exactly the same thing… Maybe DumbCriminals has the answer…
@Amit – certainly for some bloggers going it alone can work, especially if you have the technical skills necessary to do blog administration, SEO, design work, etc. If you don’t, joining a network is almost always less work and more traffic. And for the “part time blogger”, almost always more money.
After all, when average AdSense rates are falling to below 50c CPMs, Text Link Ads will now get you slapped by Google and ad networks are failing left and right, the reality is networks (like TechCrunch and b5media) still provide a far more stable environment – and they often provide a lively community, training programs and many other soft benefits (like press access) to boot.
The reality is that while some bloggers could do better on their own, most bloggers will do better in a network.
I have a PR of 0 because I recently added text-link ads. Howcome I have seen a few blogs with 10 text-link ads and PR of about 5-6?
@Jeremy – How can you make a generalization about AdSense CPMs when you ought to know better than most how much it varies by blog topic, by writer, by SEO skills, by everything? My little blog only sees 10,000 views a month but I’ve had a CPM of about $2.02 for the past 30 days. No, it’s not $4+ but it’s not shared either, nor is it $.50 or less.
Sure, some days are in the penny range but that has more to do with low traffic and a lack of effort than anything else, because I’ve got days that are in the $11.00 CPM range too. October 1st was an over $4 day with less than 400 visits, so I can’t say as that I agree with your statement at all.
Blog networks may look stable to the individual and may actually be stable when that network has a blockbuster in its stable to ride on, but ultimately I think the idea of blog networks-as-a-company in general is a busted one. It may work for a couple of niche players but that’s it, it’s not a market itself nor does it create a job market.
Ultimately I think the biggest problem blog networks have is that they don’t have the good sense to just fire low performing writers. If they didn’t bend over backwards to support people with traffic like my site has, they wouldn’t have to be so cheap with the writers that do bring in the views. Heck, I’d fire myself if I was running a network.
Ultimately I think it’s just shifting the problem down the line. Bloggers who don’t have the talent or won’t exert the effort to get the traffic aren’t going to suddenly find that talent or effort just because they join a network. All that does is shift the problem from the blogger to the network and you end up having to jump through hoops to fix the inconsistent problems that they create by their very existence.
Darren Rowse is always talking about how he found success by pruning his properties that weren’t performing well until all he had was a stable that did. With 300 blogs, I think maybe you guys ought to take some advice from one of your own guys and stop being cheap with the purse and start trimming the fat.
Hopefully their service will live longer
Hi, Mike. Jeremy tried to comment at 11:52 PDT but his got held in moderation, here’s the comment he attempted to post:
Mike, I’m not sure how you contacted me, but I have no emails/skypes/twitters/etc from you.
That said, the new pay system isn’t about cutting pay. For many bloggers there will be a cut in pay, but that is purely due to the factor hinted at in the quote: a change in stats.
As an industry, as you know, blogging (or at least media style blogging) has had to evolve its analytics and stats. Gone are the days where one company can say they have 30MM pageviews/month another can say 50MM and another can say 70MM and they all be telling the truth.
The fundamental reason for the “pay cut” is that we’ve moved from a very inaccurate stats package (AWStats) to a very accurate one (Omniture) and for many blogs the old system over-inflated their traffic by an average of 60% ish.
The blogs that are seeing the largest base pay cut (ie: pre-bonuses, which can add up to a couple of hundred dollars per month) are those in the 0-10K pageviews/month range. A range where bloggers would make pennies or small dollars doing it independently.
But, per the email, there isn’t a blog in the network getting a net CPM lower than $4. Is this a cut in pay? Maybe. But I’m not aware of anywhere else where hundreds of bloggers can get guaranteed a $4 CPM (plus bonuses) to blog about niche subjects. It’s a very fair CPM (before bonuses) and well inside industry averages (at the high end, even).
That said, that doesn’t mean this isn’t painful for bloggers. And that’s why we worked very closely with our Channel Editors to find something that was as fair as possible given the change in analytics and stats.
It isn’t perfect. It can’t be perfect, given the change in stats. But we do feel that it’s as fair.
My original comment is still in moderation. So I put it on the blog, since TC still isn’t showing it:
http://tinyurl.com/3mbzy2
We’ll have a full response in the morning.
This is a bad news for bloggers at b5media. Hope it ends up a long time in the internet sphere.
Well I don’t know about you but I think this is good news for those that can drive traffic their way .. and that means quality. I think B5 (like KnowMoreMedia tried to) are going to pay less to those bloggers that are not performing very well and only write their articles to get the $150-$200 base pay no matter how much traffic their blog gets.
To get a sitewide $4 CPM from my blog I really have to spend a lot of time with advertising networks (and that means many of them). As a blogger … I know ther new payment system is sustainable and they took the right decision.
I don’t see how anyone can spin this to be a good thing. All over the web greedy people are paying their people nothing or next to nothing. Spin it all you want but b5 is nothing but a cheap content mill which is now encouraging bloggers to stoop to cheesy linkbait tactics to compete for bonuses. That Darren Rowse condones this treatment of bloggers knocks him down a peg in my book. Maybe his way of making money online is off the backs of underpaid bloggers. I doubt he’ll put that in his next book though.
I’m also amazed at how many people are drinking the kool aid. Wake up bloggers, your time is worth more than $50 a month.
Jeremy says bloggers will do better in a network than on their own and he’s using that line of thinking to his benefit and to convince bloggers he’s doing them a favor by cutting their pay and continuing to let them blog for him.
My recommendation is for bloggers to look for work beyond networks. Find blogging jobs with businesses and individuals who wish to pay you what you’re worth and not spin off a big pay cut like it’s a good thing.
Mark, while we honestly believe the new pay system is quite fair, feel free to point to anywhere else online where bloggers are guaranteed a $4-10 CPM.
Again, the new pay system isn’t perfect but to posture it as “cheap labour” isn’t really true either. After all, how much would a blogger working all alone earn off a blog doing 5-10K pageviews/month (real ones, not server log pageviews)? The answer is less than we’re offering.
At the end of the day, we continue (and have for more than 2 years) paid 500K+ to bloggers. This isn’t about cheap labour, but about paying the right bloggers for the value, traffic and revenue that they are actually creating – while still supporting niche writers.
If that makes us somehow evil in your eyes, then I’m sorry, that’s certainly not my intention.
“Mark, while we honestly believe the new pay system is quite fair, feel free to point to anywhere else online where bloggers are guaranteed a $4-10 CPM.”
Here’s one: Green Options Media (http://greenoptions.com)
@Clayton
You just nailed the CEO of b5Media…. Good Job !
Stop bashing b5. Clearly most of you here have little or no success in blogging. He’s offering pretty generous pay
I take my comment back. I didn’t read some details properly xD
By way of comparison, my chocolate-related blog would have made $170 on b5 under the new system. In actual fact, ad revenue was $600.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say b5 bloggers are being ripped off, but the best ones could *certainly* do better by going it alone – and any company that encourages it’s best performing employees to leave has problems.
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Douche.
Bloggers also complained over at AOL and now started their own new blog Click Clack TV or something spelled like that…lol
Here’s my key takeaway: If a B5 blogger gets to 100,000 pageviews a month, they are only making $400 a month, or less than $5,000 a year (not including bonuses).
“So, how, exactly, does the new system work and what is the pay for each tier?
1. Tier 1: 30,000+ pageviews/month – $4CPM
2. Tier 2: 10,000 – 29,999 pageviews/month – $100 flat rate ($5-$10 CPM)
3. Tier 3: 5,000 – 9,999 pageviews/month – $50 ($5-$10 CPM)
4. Tier 4: 0 – 4,999 pageviews/month – $25 ($5 -$50 CPM)”
Cool! Let’s see: I could get a job that pays minimum wage, but instead, I will spend 12 hours a day blogging.
I know, I could make only a few cents [be realistic!] here and there. Well, it does not matter, I will make it up on volume!!!
Another problems is that at the end of the day my butt hurts and I don’t make enough to pay for the electricity my computer consumes…
b5media is a business built around exploiting a group of web publishers (bloggers) who don’t know the value of what they build.
When I was looking into ways to increase my blog’s revenue last year I applied to b5media. My blog was making about $1500/mo, and I assumed joining a blog network with guaranteed ad revenue and a huge advertiser pool would *increase* my earnings. They offered to pay me $200/mo. No matter how long we argued I couldn’t get them to see why I wasn’t willing to drop my revenue from $1500/mo to $200/mo. They kept coming back to “traffic bonuses” etc etc while ignoring the *actual revenue* I was already bringing in.
Just goes to show you, if you want to publish on the web, you damn well better learn how to manage your own earning avenues.
Ditto.
They [and many other "entrepreneurs"] know that there is one fool born every minute…
A blogger network such as this makes more sense for the blogger if joining gives you additional exposure and helps the blog readership to grow. Although adsense rates vary widely based upon content of the blog, it might be just easier and more profitable for the blogger just to do google adsense unless the blogger gets something more out of the deal.
So b5 is cutting blogger pay, yet they have recently added many new staff members (according to their website), including an advisory board filled with the likes of scoble. Where are the priorities?
Wonder if Scoble knows anything about this.
Very bad thing. I am against this. They should not cut the pay
No, let them cut the pay. Then the really good b5 bloggers will leave that pansy Jeremy and refocus on their own blogs.
Trust me, the blogosphere will be richer for it.
@Jon – I recall seeing something on Twitter regarding Dave Taylor be added to the ranks too.
No, Dave joined our ad network.
And what number tier payment program are Scoble and the rest of the advisory board members operating under? If Robert Scoble were to interview himself would he get a really big bonus?
It seems that the old pay system was unsustainable and created some unintended incentives, so I understand the need to update the compensation model. However, that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant for the bloggers who have to take a pay cut.
On the other hand, I wish I could pay $4+ CPM to the awesome guy who blogs for me.
Running a profitable blog network is a challenge, and I wish Jeremy and the b5media bloggers all the best.
Tough decision but probably the right one for Jeremy and the b5media gang. At Know More Media we felt the same market forces and pressures at work. It’s a sustainable business model but requires constant adaptation and tweaking. My best wishes to them.
Two points concern me:
1 – Taking that long to discover that you have a problem with your existing setup.
2 – Using a change of stats measuring software as a justification for a change in pay systems.
Matt
What BS. b5media should be ashamed of itself. $50 a month? I wouldn’t even take a piss for that amount.
Matt Wardman hit the nail on the head: any company that takes this long to figure out that it has a problem is incompetent and any CEO that uses his company’s f*ckup to justify to his “employees” a pay cut is a real pansy.
Anybody who sticks with b5media deserves what they get. Which right now is a whole lot of nothing.
They should be? I tried starting my own professional blog. It took me 9 MONTHS to get to $50 per month in adsense revenue. If they’ll offer me that right out of the gate then I’d be pretty happy! I’m thinking of applying actually. If all of their bloggers are too stuck up to take it, I know I could use the extra cash!
You’re doing it wrong.
“…any CEO that uses his company’s f*ckup to justify to his “employees” a pay cut is a real pansy.”
As a former b5media blogger, I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of my dealings with Jeremy.
I can tell you, however, that he is a pansy.
I’m just curious as to why anyone who has such an offensive and vile avatar would think readers would take him serious? If Mike Abundo is a “former” b5 blogger, I’d like to place a bet as to why he’s not there any longer. Anyone care to wager a guess?
Classy there dude!
Have any of you looked at average CPM rates lately?
Where else can a newly-established independent blogger get guaranteed $4-$10 CPM? It doesn’t happen unless you have a very niche market.
Additionally, have any of you compared this to Gakwer or Weblogs Inc. rates? They’re not that far off…
Wouldn’t the simplest and most transparent fix be to do a 50/50 revenue share (based on actual revenue generated). Surely a technology blog’s CPMs should be higher than a Lindsay Lohan blog.
This new (and old) method means some bloggers will get less and some will get more than they “deserve”… so the only reason I can think of that b5 would want this is because the house always wins.
And the more niche content sites, which have reader demand but maybe not the rich advertising demand, would suffer. It’s conceivable that a lifestyles type blog drive 50k pageviews and have little or no interest from advertisers. The blogger then gets “punished” because they can’t make money under a revenue split. Trust me, we went through all of this when I was with b5 (as staff).
I’m sure this was a hard decision. b5 has always tried (sometimes to a fault) to put bloggers first and I know the company was wrestling with how to do this for a long time – prior to my departure even.
“It’s conceivable that a lifestyles type blog drive 50k pageviews and have little or no interest from advertisers.”
If it has no interest from advertisers then why continue with it at all? It’s a business at the end of the day which is expected to drive bottom line and not some leisure walk in the park. Anyways, I trust B5 is going to tweak these things and make it better.
To note, I am still with B5.
I wouldn’t say B5 bloggers are getting ripped off. After all they provide bloggers a service to assist them. That service has to be paid for in some way.
But also think the best ones are better off going it alone using adsense. The blog I do the admin work for earns twice what it would under B5’s plan.
As the publisher of a blog network that has had to undergo a similar restructuring of writer compensation model for Q4 (and gone through multiple iterations in the past), I understand where Jeremy’s coming from.
If networks don’t create a business model that is sustainable, why start a network in the first place? To go to BWE and tweet about how awesome the parties are? The simple fact is that there are benefits to centralization of tech and marketing resources. There are people that benefit from being part of a network because they want to blog but don’t want to administer or spend months monetizing it. I personally don’t know how to optimize a Wordpress install and probably will never feel like learning. And there are definitely intangible benefits from blogging with a group of similarly-interested writers, pushing toward a common goal, as is the case at Green Options Media.
If you’re not one of those people, then acknowledge that it’s not for you, you’d rather start your own blog and make your own brand and money, do that, and shut up about people being exploited. It’s not like Jeremy or any other blog network heads are sitting there with a whip shouting “back to the blog mines!” (well, except Nick Denton, who I’ve heard does that even to people who don’t blog for Gawker)
It’s each blogger’s choice, and it’s up to them to calculate if joining a network is best for them. And for many people, it is best for them.
Oh, and hey TechCrunch, thanks for providing a forum for the lowest common denominator of armchair quarterbacks in the tech world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of open debate. But the peanut gallery here reminds me of the crowd in Gladiator–fun to be part of the judgers but generally devoid of substance.
“I personally don’t know how to optimize a Wordpress install and probably will never feel like learning.”
Poor you.
Do you have a point? Poor everyone who blogs because they have expertise outside of the tech-web world.
While I don’t disagree with b5’s new pay structure, the PV/CPM discussion seems a little off base. Most bloggers that I’ve worked with run 3-5 ad units per page, not one. So a $4 CPM per ad unit would be very competitive for most bloggers, but it seems like these calculations are talking about the RPM for bloggers. Which would equal between a $1-1.50 CPM per ad unit. For high quality niche content, most stand alone bloggers with decent traffic can beat that with a good combination of ad networks pretty easily.
I don’t know much about the world of pay blogging and b5media but I do think there should be a disclaimer on these type of company websites saying “not for investment purposes” like they do on lottery tickets. Because in my opinion, if you don’t put your own independent blog or web forum, social networking website etc… out there that can be monetized and instead go through one of these giant blog corrals then you’re bound to run into problems and not get paid what your blog is worth.
I say, get some cheap hosting somewhere like http://www.domain.com, http://www.mydomain.com, etc… and put up a blog/Wordpress/website of your own. Or even better, score hosting and put up a NING.com community site or buy into a fully customized social networking website like the new service offered at http://www.dots...keting/connect/. All of these options are better than selling yourself to a big blogging company in my opinion.
Are there any “famous” b5media bloggers? When I look at it, b5 doesn’t really have a standout blog. Unless you count ProBlogger but I don’t think he’s being paid on the same level as the rest of the bloggers.
I bring this up because not many bloggers are making a big name for themselves working for this network. If that’s what you’re after you need to blog on your own. b5media as a network is a big name but the individual blogs are little fish swimming around in a big pond. The only well known b5ers are the ones who own the company or are sitting on the board of directors.
I just think it’s sad for so many to bust their butts and not get recognition outside of their networks. The name b5 may be big but the individual blogs will always be small.
It depends on your definition of fame. At b5 it’s determined by how big a Wikipedia page you have.
Here’s a test:
Go to any of the b5 media blog sites, most of them have an about link on the side bar which links back to b5media.com (except Darren Rowse’s cause he’s tool cool for school – and all the b5 branding). Anyway, click on the said link…
And where is the problogger these days? Darren Rowse is strangely silent.
Anyone else think that was a really long email for b5 bloggers to read? I went out for coffee twice before I could finish it.
That was uncharacteristically short and coherent for Jeremy.
Bwahahahaha!!
b5media’s only value proposition is: if you can’t set up and manage a blogging platform like WordPress, we’ll do it for you and we’ll also conveniently handle the sale of advertising, splitting some of it with you.
Good bloggers are good writers. They deserve to be paid as such.
Yet b5media is incapable of paying its bloggers like writers (e.g. we’ll pay you $35,000 to write for us full-time) because it doesn’t have a viable business model where its product can be sold in some fashion for more than it is made for.
The problem for b5media is that it’s ineptness leaves it with the worst people. Has anyone here looked at their blogs? Horrible. Some are just repasted press releases and splogs.
You pay shit, you get shit.
I feel sad for the readers of my old b5media blogs. They’ve been left with nothing.
That’s okay, you didn’t have many readers and they had nothing when you were there.
I have to really disagree with a lot of what was said here…
I am a former b5er – a blogger and a Channel Editor. And yes, said former. I left because I did not love where the company was headed. I took serious issue with a lot of what was happening with respect to pay, bonuses and “valuation” of blog content.
All of that said, to criticize the bloggers is highly unfair and erroneous. I’m sure that there are blogs that weren’t up to speed – in any company, you’re going to have weak links (I say this as a business owner). But many of the writers were – and are – outstanding. I had the opportunity to work with many of them. More often that not, the writers at b5 are stand up individuals that really enjoy what they’re doing.
To criticize the bloggers as poor or desperate is completely off base and inappropriate… You don’t know what drives someone until you’ve been in their shoes. A writer may write for b5 not because of money but because of reputation, exposure, community… You have no idea. So it’s really not fair to judge.
I personally don’t love the new pay model. I don’t think it’s fair to many of the niche bloggers. But that’s not a reflection on the bloggers. Please don’t bundle those bloggers up in your “slave labor” labels and assume that they have no options. It’s unfair and untrue.
b5 has some excellent bloggers. Unfortunately, Jeremy has neither the budget nor the courage to develop or defend superstars. At the rate he’s going, all the people with potential will leave, and he’ll be left with a splog network.
I just don’t understand. This isn’t necessarily a b5 gripe it’s a gripe about all the networks and content mills. The writers and bloggers work the hardest. Without them there would be no b5, no Today.com, no SplashPress, no Gawker, nothing. The bloggers and tech team are the most important people in the blogger networks. I don’t think anyone can disagree with that. The bloggers are always the lowest paid. Management continuously gives themselves raises, pays for conferences and other perks and supports their families thanks to the people they have blogging for them. To pay them a low rate to begin with and take a lot of that away is unfair on so many levels. I wonder if management cut their own pay before deciding it was the bloggers who should pay for their own inflated stats? I can’t get over how wrong this is. Bloggers should always come first. Without bloggers there wouldn’t be a blog network. And I don’t want to see one b5 or low paid blogger on the message boards and job sites complaining about the low wages. By accepting your wages you’re approving the pay. If more people would complain less networks would make money off you. I’ll repeat it again. Bloggers are the most important people in the blog network and should be paid with this in mind.
That pay level is surprisingly low, especially if these bloggers are US based. We pay our bloggers in Russia substantially more than that. As someone wrote above, if you’re working for peanuts – look for coporate work. If you can write professionally and regularly on a given topic there are plenty of SEO/SEM companies who will pick you up to write for client blogs. Quality bloggers are gold in that space, especially when they can interact and build the audience.
That’s why I just blog for myself.
-Best Blogger Alive
Darren Rowse needs to write a new book: How to be a six figure blogger when you work for a network and still have a life.
You can only become a six figure blogger by hiring network bloggers. Obviously network bloggers aren’t encouraged to earn anything near that.
Just a warning for anything posting against b5. Jeremy said at the blogherald he’s comparing IPs.
Where to me to be no outlander to with rules? I do not see section
Oh I love the scare tactic, “Anon”… He also explained himself further as well, but you don’t come back to puke that one up, do you?
The bottom line here is freedom. b5media is a business, and has revamped their entire business model (not just the pay), and any current/past/future b5 blogger has the FREEDOM to decide what works best for them, as an individual.
Doesn’t give need to the rise of bashing, doesn’t lend kindly to the scare tactic mentality, and doesn’t mean crap to those who support b5media. Give it a rest already.
When will the naive bloggers learn it’s not acceptable to be paid these slave wages? I support myself with only the highest paying jobs. Magazines pay the best. I even bought my iPhone with the pay from one job. Go ahead and settle, lowly bloggers. I have my site set on bigger clients.
b5media prioritizes and it’s unfair for all you jealous people to say they don’t care for their bloggers. In the b5media breakroom they have a drum machine, cool leather couch and big screen tv. Of course they don’t need funds for….oh I don’t know….the people who work the hardest because it’s more important for the b5media Toronto team to have so darn much fun all the time. http://www.flic...ith/2920865864/
Rock Band: paid for by b5 staff
Couch: cheaper than IKEA
TV: Refurbished and cheaper than a projector (which is what it’s used for)
Gawd some people need something better to do with their time than imagine we’re screwing bloggers while pocketing millions.
I quit writing for b5 a couple weeks ago, when they killed my humor blog (www.starkedsf.com) after cramming it inexplicably into a travel channel.
My only regret is that I didn’t leave earlier.
Dear Jeremy Wright,
When I was accepted to work for b5Media I walked on air for days. Imagine, me, getting into a network with such a great reputation. Liz Strauss works for b5Media, Brian Clark works for b5Media and Darren Rowse was one of the owners. I could be a big name blogger too! Except that didn’t happen. I became known among other b5Media bloggers but no one knew of me outside of the network. But that’s not why I’m leaving I’m leaving because
- Our new contract makes our jobs more difficult. We can’t post images without government sized amounts of paperwork, we can’t use affiliats anymore and we can’t review big ticket items anymore. Considering I just lost MORE than half my pay this doesn’t give me much incentive. Did I mention I lost more than half my pay?
- In the private b5Media forum, certain team members are flat out ignoring certain questions regarding new pay and the contract. There is no excuse for this rudeness and starts you off on the wrong foot. At least say you can’t respond to that.
- Morale is at an all time low.
- Bloggers are leaving in droves. I can tell by all the internal blogger’s wanted lists. (Best to keep that off of ProBlogger. Can’t have everyone worrying about a “mass exodus” can we?
- CE’s promise one thing to us and turn around and say something else to each other in the CE chat. I no longer trust the people who are to manage us.
Nice work, b5media. I stuck with you because I believed in you. Now I don’t believe in you at all any more.
Signed,
A Recently Former Long Term Blogger
Not quite. You only have to fill out one online form but I get that it’s an inconvenience. If someone gives us permission and we post attribution on our blogs we shouldn’t have to jump through any more hoops. Almost everyone is bummed because it’s one bit of bad news after another. Just as we get over one thing we’re slammed with another. I’m very disappointed in the way things are going for b5media. I’m one of the people who resigned recently because I think they’ve gone too far. I’m of the opinion that their reputation is ruined.
Hope everyone is happy now.
This is now the third or fourth place I’ve found the above “Not signing” comment.
Each of the points has already been proven false, though folk are still entitled to their opinion. I wish both of the above bloggers all the best either way.