Carnival evolution: Broadcasting to Nichecasting
Commentary March 23rd, 2007
Some of the first blog carnivals had a broad subject matter. Since “carnival real estate” was wide open, general-interest carnivals could stake their claim without displacing anyone. When one looks at the money and finance carnivals at BlogCarnival.com there are a couple of screenfuls of money and finance carnivals. The first of these (as far as I know) was the Carnival of Personal Finance, with the premier edition hosted at its creator’s website, Consumerism Commentary.
This carnival enjoyed a few months by itself before a troublemaker (I won’t mention any names!) cut his own slice of the blog carnival pie by creating the Carnival of Debt Reduction, which was aimed at highlighting personal debt reduction stories. The initial posting of the guidelines and schedule for the Carnival of Debt Reduction acknowledged the existence of the Carnival of Personal Finance with the hope that things wouldn’t get too crowded:
Why start up one [carnival] on Debt Reduction when there’s already one [carnival] on Personal Finance, you might ask? Debt reduction is part of personal finance — no doubt about that. It’s a very important part of personal finance, though — important enough to have its own carnival. Successful debt reduction stories and good debt reduction advice needs more exposure, and people need to see that debt is not forever. Many inspiring debt reduction stories make their way into blogs, and it is encouraging to everyone involved — bloggers, carnival hosts, and readers — to have their successes and insights highlighted on a regular basis. It is my feeling that there’s enough room in the blogosphere for both a Debt Reduction carnival and a Personal Finance carnival. We’ll see!
In short, I felt there was enough room for a blog carnival that was a sub-topic of an existing carnival. A year and a half later, the carnival still has regular contributors and people still are interested in hosting. Also, the Carnival of Personal Finance still thrives, and if anything, gets more posts than it did before!
Following this carnival there was the Carnival of Investing and the Festival of Frugality, which arguably are also sub-topics within personal finance. And more division of personal finance, like the Carnival of Taxes. Then, there was even more specialization of investing, like the Festival of Stocks and the Carnival of Real Estate Investing. Today, there are four other real-estate-related blog carnivals listed, and four other blog carnivals specializing in credit and debt.
Once one gets a foot in the door, lots of others can get in. But the more that come in, the more specialized they have to be.
While the new specialized carnivals have to struggle to find enough posts to piece together a decent edition, the older, more general carnivals run into the problem that there are too many posts for each carnival. The specialized carnivals have to define themselves, whereas the older carnivals may have to re-define themselves to avoid becoming unwieldy.
Blog carnivals are a great way for newer blogs to gain some exposure, and having a highly specialized blog carnival that is directly related to the content of the post may be just as effective in gaining exposure than if it were submitted to a bigger, but less specialized carnival. This is because the readers of the specialized carnival are more targeted than the readers of the broader carnival.
I think if one is going to participate in blog carnivals, submitting to the more general ones and more specific ones is a good idea. And if an appropriate specific one hasn’t been started up, maybe it’s time! As the blog carnival scene evolves, odds are someone will take it upon themselves to fill in the vacuum.
Does it pay to be clever as a host?
Commentary, Hosting March 26th, 2007
Putting together a carnival can take anywhere from about five minutes to many, many hours.
The five minute version takes advantage of the “InstaCarnival” feature on BlogCarnival.com. The InstaCarnival is a post that has a number of lines with the format:
Blogger presents blog post, posted at blog, saying “comment”
for each post submitted through the BlogCarnival.com interface. This is a perfectly valid way to put a carnival together. It’s straightforward. It’s clear. It’s also pretty cookie-cutter. (This isn’t a slam on BlogCarnival — if computers start writing as well as, or better than, humans, we’re in trouble as bloggers!)
I’ve started with the InstaCarnival template with a few carnivals I’ve hosted. I massage the text a little bit, but it sure is helpful if you’re away from your high-speed internet connection and you have a carnival to put together.
The many, many hours version involves not only reading the submitted posts (!) but also putting together a kind of show. These are labors of love for the hosts. Sometimes you get the carnival in verse, with an old video game flair, with a podcast, with celebrities, or even with a Renaissance faire!
(These are just a few examples! If you have a great one to add to the list, post a comment!)
Now the big question: Which kind is better?
The InstaCarnival type (a list of posts and not much else) is clear but unimaginative on the part of the host. It saves the host time. For a big carnival, the return on investment for the host is pretty good: lots of traffic and lots of trackbacks without much work.
The SuperCarnival type (like the ones linked to above) are really cool to look at and will probably get more link love (links in posts) and more buzz than the InstaCarnival.
If it were just backlinks and buzz, the well-put-together carnival would be a hands-down winner. But I don’t think it’s that simple. For all of the flash of these carnivals, how much time did you spend clicking through to the posts? Was dressing up the carnival a service or a disservice to the people who submitted to the carnival? Sure, the good-looking carnival gets more traffic, but does it get more click-throughs? And if hosts did this week after week, calling more attention to the carnival than to the posts, would the submitters keep submitting?
I don’t really know. But I do think that the “dull” carnivals put the spotlight on the posts more than the “exciting” ones. It’s easier to find what posts you want to read in the simple carnival than in the ornate one.
So I wouldn’t feel slighted with a drab carnival if the little chunk with my post was easy to understand and encouraged readers to click through to my article. On the other hand, I also wouldn’t feel slighted if a really crazy cool carnival drew a bunch of traffic and gained a wider audience, a few of which clicked through to my blog for the first time.
What’s your opinion?