business blog buyout2003.06.29

Andy Bourland, founder of ClickZ, buys collaborative e-marketing blog Marketing Fix. I think this is the first time something like this has happened, though there could have been others that escaped my notice. Either way, it was inevitable.

When the Web first got noticed by businesses, they rolled their own web sites and hailed it as the New Big Thing. Then they realized that rolling your own was expensive, so they started buying Sites in a Box to plug into their business plans. Nowadays we have a more balanced mix of roll-your-own, in-a-box, ASPs and web services.

Business blogs are now the New Big Thing for business. Don't get me wrong. It's all good, if done correctly. Anything that gets us remotely closer to a Cluetrain-aware economy, the better.

So we're starting with roll-your-own, but I feel sure that as businesses grapple with the concept of business blogging, roll-your-own will morph into a period where some of the top business-related blogs get consolidated, bought up, and plugged into a existing business models.

In time, it will all shake out again, and people will relax. Five years ago every other tech mag had a survey of companies: Do you have or plan to have a web site in the next six months? Now they don't ask any more.

The New Big Thing will always cause a flurry for a year or two while business tries to play catch up with the groundswell of activity from those of us doing it first, doing it for free, doing it without a business model or revenue source.

Still, it should be fun to watch the game. It always was.

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